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They Were Breathless When They Reached The Front Gate 





UrtHARY of CONGRESS 
Two Copies Received 

SEP -3 190 ? 

Oowneht ftitnr ' 
McoiZT/ity 
CIAS3>4 XXc.; No. 

COPY B. 




Copyright, 1907, by 
George W. Jacobs & Company 
Published July, igoj 



All rights reserved 
Printed in U. S, A. 


CONTENTS 


I. 

Molly and Polly . 



9 

11 . 

Uncle Dick at School , 



26 

m. 

Mary 



41 

IV. 

The Ehinestone Pin 



63 

V. 

Mary and the Boy . 



83 

VI. 

Discoveries 



99 

VII. 

In Elton Woods 



116 

VIII. 

Ellis and the Baby 



133 

IX. 

New Burdens for Ellis . 



161 

X. 

Arabs .... 



169 

XI. 

The Roseberry Family . 



186 

XII. 

East and West 



206 



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ILLUSTRATIONS 


They were breathless when they 

/ 

reached the front gate 

Frontispiece 

Mollie, wearing a long silken gown. 

Facing page 33 

swept in 


With five costumes to devise out of 
scraps, Miss Ada had her 
hands full . ... . 70 


For that day, at least, the small 
Miss Myrtle Dixon was over- 
whelmed with attention . . 142 

‘‘They^ve got to be wrecked, you 

know^^ u 199 ^ 





CHAPTER I 
Molly and Polly 

It had stopped raining ; Molly made quite sure 
of it by looking into the little puddles upon the 
walk. At first she thought there were drops still 
falling upon them, but it was only the wind 
which ruffled the surface. The green grass was 
misty with rain and upon the bushes the shining 
drops hung from every twig. Presently a sud- 
den burst of sunshine broke through the clouds 
and changed the drops to sparkles of light. 
‘‘There!’’ exclaimed Molly, “I see a piece of 
blue sky. Now I may go, mayn’t I, mother ? 
It is clearing off.” 

Mrs. Shelton came to the window and Molly 
with serious face watched her scan the sky. “ It 
really is brighter,” Mrs. Shelton decided. “ Yes, 
I see a piece of blue big enough for a Dutch- 
man’s breeches so I think the rain is over, but 
you’d better put on your rubbers, Molly.” 

Molly scarcely waited to hear but danced out 
of the room and down the steps. “ Don’t forget 


12 


Three Little Cousins 


your rubbers I ” her mother called after her, and 
Molly scurried to the closet under the stairs, 
grabbed the rubbers, snatched up her hat and 
was out of the door in a twinkling. Steadying 
herself on one foot, she drew on the overshoes, 
for there was no time to sit down ; she could 
hear the whistle of the cars in the distance and 
knew there was barely time to reach the station 
before the train would stop. 

It was an important occasion, for would not 
the express bring Molly’s Cousin Polly whom she 
had always longed to meet ? And not only Polly 
was coming but their Uncle Dick who was bring- 
ing Polly all the way from Colorado to the east. 
Uncle Dick was not so much of a novelty as 
Polly, but he was quite as ardently expected, 
for he was the jolliest fellow in the world, Molly 
thought, and, though he teased her unmercifully, 
he was full of jokes and funny quips and amus- 
ing anecdotes, besides being generous in the ex- 
treme and always ready to put himself out to do 
a kind turn. As for Polly, Molly had many con- 
jectures concerning her. What sort of girl 
would she be who had always lived on a ranch 
far away from the rest of the world ; a girl who 


Molly and Polly 13 

had never been to school and only a few times 
to church, who had never seen a big city, nor 
an automobile, nor even a trolley car ? Would 
she be very wild indeed, whooping like a savage 
Indian and eating with her knife like an un- 
tutored woodsman ? Would Molly be ashamed 
to have her friends meet her ? These questions, 
to which the answer was so near, Molly asked 
herself for the hundredth time as she walked 
toward the station. 

Already the train was slowing up and in a 
few moments Molly was standing tiptoe, looking 
eagerly along the line of cars. Then she watched 
each person who descended the steps till at last 
she was rewarded by the sight of a tall young 
man who lifted down a little girl about Molly’s 
age, a fair-haired, rosy-cheeked little girl, pret- 
tily dressed, and in no way suggesting a wild In- 
dian. The instant Molly saw her, she was seized 
with a fit of shyness and could not follow her 
first impulse to rush forward. Instead she waited 
where she was till the two came up. 

“ Hello ! ” cried Uncle Dick. I expected you 
would come at least to the next station to meet 
us, and here you are backing away instead.” 


14 Three Little Cousins 

Feeling that Polly might think that she really 
did not show the eagerness to see her that she 
ought to expect, Molly put out her hand but 
was presently seized in Polly’s fervent hug. 
“ Oh, but I am glad to see you,” she said. “ I 
could scarcely wait to get here, could I, Uncle 
Dick ? It’s such a long way and to-day was the 
longest one of all.” 

“I’ve been just crazy to see you, too,” re- 
turned Molly. “ I was so afraid it would rain 
hard and mother would not let me come to meet 
you. Where’s Uncle Dick going ? Oh, I see ; he 
is looking after your baggage. Don’t you hate 
sleeping-cars, and didn’t it seem funny to have 
no one but Uncle Dick all these days ? ” 

“ No one but Uncle Dick ; I like that,” said 
that gentleman rejoining them. “ Are you go- 
ing to have me called a nobody at the very out- 
set, Polly ? ” 

“ Oh, I didn’t mean ” began Molly cov- 

ered with confusion. 

“ Oh, yes you did ; you said it when you 
thought my back was turned,” interrupted her 
uncle. 

Polly began to pound him with her fist. “ Quit 


15 


Molly and Polly 

your nonsense, you great big, long-legged, old 
tease,” she said. “ You know that wasn’t what 
Molly meant. You aren’t a bit nice to her ; you 
began to tease her the very minute you set eyes 
on her. You’d better be pretty good to her or I 
won’t let you take me home again ; so there, sir.” 

Uncle Dick gave her a playful shake. 
“ You’ll be homesick enough in a week from now 
to go home by yourself,” he warned her. 

“ She’ll do no such thing,” cried Molly, gath- 
ering courage from Polly’s example. “She’ll 
just love it here, I know. Come along, Polly ; 
we’ll get home first.” 

But, in spite of their trying to run ahead. 
Uncle Dick’s long legs overtook them, and with 
a hand, which they could not shake off, on the 
shoulder of each, he rushed them along so fast 
that they were breathless when they reached the 
front gate. Molly’s mother was at the door to 
greet them. She gathered travel-stained little 
Polly into her arms. “ Dear Polly, I am so glad 
we are to have you with us at last,” she said. 
“ Are you very tired, dearie ? Was it a tire- 
some journey ? ” 

“ It was rather tiresome at the last,” Polly ac- 


i6 Three Little Cousins 

knowledged, “ though at first I liked it for there 
were some very kind ladies who came as far as 
St. Louis, but the rest of the way I did get tired 
of sitting still all day. I am dreadfully cindery 
and black, Aunt Betty, so I am afraid you can’t 
see at all what I look like. I did try to get off 
some of the worst about an hour ago, but I sup- 
pose I am still very black, as black as Manuel.” 

“ Who is Manuel ? ” asked Molly. 

“ He’s the blackest one of the Mexicans who 
work for father,” Polly replied. 

“Take your cousin up-stairs and see to mak- 
ing her comfortable,” Mrs. Shelton told Molly. 
“Well, Dick, I believe you are actually taller 
than when I last saw you. When are you going 
to stop growing ? ” she said to her brother. 

“ When I come east to live,” he returned. 
“Everything is big out our way, you know. 
Everything, including our hearts.” 

“ That’s true enough in your case,” responded 
his sister. “Your old room is ready for you. 
Eun right up ; I must speak to the maids.” 

By this time, the two little girls were in the 
room they were to share together, and in a few 
minutes Polly had made herself more presentable 


17 


Molly and Polly 

by the use of soap and water, and with Molly’s 
help in changing her dress. Then the cousins 
faced each other and examined one another 
critically, and presently both burst out laughing. 
“ You don’t look a bit as I thought you did,” 
said Molly. 

“ Neither do you,” returned Polly. “ I thought 
you would be fair, like a doll I have named 
Molly.” 

“ And I thought you would be like a picture I 
have of Minnehaha,” returned Molly. Then 
they laughed again. “ Isn’t it funny that we are 
both named for our grandmother,” continued 
Molly. “ Suppose you had been called Molly in- 
stead of Polly, wouldn’t we get mixed up ? ” 

“ Yes, almost as much as if we were both called 
Polly,” said Polly, laughing again. 

“ Are you verj^ very fond of Uncle Dick ? ” 
asked Molly. 

“ Oh, dear, yes ; I adore him. "We are just the 
best sort of friends. He is the greatest tease, 
but I know ways to tease him, too.” 

“ Oh, do tell me,” Molly begged, “ for he teases 
me nearly to death, though I think he is perfectly 
splendid.” 


i8 Three Little Cousins 

“ Wait till he is in a teasing mood, and you’ll 
see,” Polly answered. “ Oh, Molly, I am per- 
fectly wild to think I am to see the ocean. I 
have lived among the mountains all my life, and 
I am wild to get to the sea.” 

“ You will love it,” Molly assured her. “Won’t 
we have a fine time all summer together ? ” She 
looked admiringly at Polly’s curling locks, her 
dimples, and her pretty fresh white frock. Here 
was a cousin of whom she need not be ashamed. 
Why had Uncle Dick called her as wild as a 
March hare ? Why had he given Molly the im- 
pression that an Indian was a tame creature be- 
side Polly Perrine ? 

Polly was thinking much the same thing. Why 
had Uncle Dick given her the idea that she would 
find her cousin a fair, doll-like creature ? To be 
sure she had seen a photograph of Molly, but she 
had worn a hat and coat when it was taken and 
one could easily get a wrong impression from it. 

“ Let’s go down,” proposed Molly ; “ I have 
lots of things to show you ; besides I want to see 
Uncle Dick.” She felt a little jealous of her 
cousin’s claim to their uncle, and she felt sure 
her father would appropriate him if he happened 


Molly and Polly 19 

to come in before she reached the porch where 
her mother was sitting with her brother. 

Her father had not arrived, having gone to 
some business meeting which was sure to keep 
him late. Uncle Dick was lolling back in a porch 
chair. ‘‘ Hello, youngsters,” he cried as he caught 
sight of his nieces. “ How are you getting along ? 
What do you think of each other ? ” 

Polly ran to him, and perching herself upon the 
arm of the chair, turned up his nose with an im- 
pertinent finger. “ Badness,” she said, why did 
you tell me that Molly looked like a wax doll ? ” 
“ Did I tell you that ? Well, if I were a maker 
of wax dolls, I could make one just like her, I 
think, if I had some of old Doc’s tail for hair and 
two pieces of coal for eyes.” 

Her eyes aren’t black ; they’re like two pieces 
of brown velvet,” objected Polly, “and her hair 
isn’t a bit like Doc’s tail ; it is as soft as silk. 
Your nose must go up higher for that, sir.” She 
gave his nose an extra tilt while he squirmed un- 
der the process. 

“ There, there, Polly, that is high enough ! ” 
he exclaimed ; “ it will never come down again if 
you turn it up too high.” 


20 


Three Little Cousins 


“ I hope it will aot,” said Polly ; “ I hope it 
will stay turned up like Dicky-pig’s.” 

“ Who is Dicky-pig ? ” asked Molly. 

“ Oh, he is a little pig I named after my beau- 
tiful uncle ; he looks just like him,” said Polly 
mirthfully. 

“ Does your brother look like a pig ? ” Dick 
asked his sister. 

Mrs. Shelton smiled as she looked at the hand- 
some youth. “I don’t detect a striking re- 
semblance,” she replied, rising to leave. 

“ Well, he acts like one sometimes,” declared 
Polly. “ I want to know, too,” she went on, to 
her uncle, “ if you have been telling Molly things 
about me that aren’t so.” 

“He said you were wild as a March hare 
and looked like an Apache Indian,” announced 
Molly from the other side of the chair, giving 
her uncle’s hair a tweak. 

“ Two to one is not fair,” cried Dick. “ I draw 
the line at having my hair pulled out by the 
roots ; it is quite enough to have my nose mauled 
all out of shape. Here, young woman, you must 
be kept in better order. Polly, you are setting a 
bad example to your cousin ; never before has she 


21 


Molly and Polly 

pulled my hair.” He grabbed first one and then 
the other, stowed them away under his knees and 
held them tight. 

“ You’re spoiling my clean frock,” complained 
Polly. “ Let me out and I’ll not turn up your 
nose.” Dick loosed his hold, “ till the next time,” 
added Polly darting away. 

Dick made a grab for her and Molly, too, 
escaped. “ Come back, come back ! ” cried Dick. 
“ I have something for you, Molly, and you shall 
have it if you will answer me one question.” 

The girls slowly returned, but kept at a safe 
distance. “ What is the question ? ” asked Molly. 

Uncle Dick dived down into one of his pockets 
and drew forth a box of candy which he laid on 
the chair by his side. “ I want to see how you 
are progressing with your studies,” he remarked 
with gravity. “ By the way, is school over yet ? ” 

“No, it closes next week,” Molly told him, 
eying the candy. 

“ Ah, then I must visit it and inquire into your 
record,” said her uncle with an air of dignity. 

“ Oh, Uncle Dick ! ” Molly was on pins and 
needles lest he should really do something of the 
kind, and if he should hurt the feelings of her 


22 


Three Little Cousins 


dear Miss Isabel whom she adored, Molly did not 
know what she should do. Miss Isabel might 
not understand her uncle’s joking ways and — oh, 
dear I Her anxious look made her uncle chuckle 
with glee. 

“ I’ll go sure as a gun,” he declared, seeing a 
chance to tease. 

“ Oh, please don’t,” begged Molly. 

“ Why not go ? Indeed I shall. I am confi- 
dent from your manner. Miss Shelton, that it 
really is necessary that I should make some in- 
quiries for the credit of the family. Tell me why 
I should not go, if you please.” 

“ Why — why — none of the girls’ uncles ever do 
go,” said Molly lamely. 

“ Not a bit of reason why I should not start 
the custom. What is your teacher like ? Old, 
with little bobbing curls each side her face? 
Wears a cap, does she ? or false frizzes and her 
teeth click when she talks ? ” 

“ She’s nothing like that at all,” returned Molly 
indignantly. “ She is perfectly lovely with blue 
eyes and long black lashes, and the beautifullest 
hair, and she has the prettiest, whitest teeth, like 
even corn on the cob.” 


Molly and Polly 23 

My, oh, my ! All the more must I go,” said 
Dick. ‘‘ Is she young, dear niece ? How old 
might she be, darling Molly ? ” 

“ Oh, I don’t know ; I think about twenty-one, 
for she has only been teaching a year. She didn’t 
leave college till last summer, and she told me 
she wasn’t seventeen when she first went there.” 

‘‘Delightful,” said Uncle Dick meditatively. 
“ Where is my sister ? I must interest her in 
this matter. Now, Molly, sweet girl, answer my 
question and you shall have, not only this box of 
candy, but another to take to — what did I under- 
stand your teacher’s name to be ? ” 

“ It is Isabel Ainslee, and it is a beautiful 
name.” 

I quite agree with you. Now, Molly, answer 
me. How many cakes can you buy two for three 
cents apiece ? ” 

Molly looked at Polly. This was a puzzler 
surely. “Two,” she ventured uncertainly. 

Uncle Dick looked at her penetratingly. 
“That might be the answer under some circum- 
stances,” he said. 

This puzzled Molly more than ever and she 
looked at Polly for inspiration. 


24 


Three Little Cousins 


Polly was laughing. “ You’re an old fraud,” 
she said to her uncle. “ That is no question at 
all. It is nonsense, Molly. It depends entirely 
upon how much money you have. If you have 
six cents you can buy two cakes.” 

“ So you can,” returned Molly, seeing daylight. 
“ I have just six cents, so I could buy two cakes 
at three cents apiece.” 

“But you didn’t answer; it was Polly who 
did,” said her uncle. 

“ Then Polly takes the candy,” said that person 
darting forward and snatching up the candy box 
which she thrust into Molly’s hand. “Here, 
Molly, run,” she cried. And run Molly did, hold- 
ing fast to the box and giving one backward glance 
at her uncle which showed him laughing and 
shaking his fist at the two retreating figures. 

“Just wait till I see that Isabel Ainslee,” he 
called after them. “I’ll fix it for you, Molly 
Shelton.” 

But Molly had no fears, for Polly whispered ; 
“He’s only trying to tease, Molly. Don’t mind 
him.” 


CHAPTER II 
Uncle Dick at School 



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CHAPTER II 
Uncle Dick at School 

It wanted but a week of the time when the 
delightful season would begin which meant long 
days of freedom for the two little girls, for they 
were to spend the summer in a dear little cottage 
by the sea. Ever since Aunt Ada Reid bought 
her cottage it had been Molly’s happy experience 
to spend the summer there, and to enjoy the de- 
light of running wild. Polly was already en- 
thusiastic but she became doubly so as the time 
approached and Molly dwelt upon the joys before 
them. 

“We can run anywhere we like and nobody 
cares,” Molly told her, “ and there is so much to 
do the days never seem half long enough. Just 
this week of school, and then free ! free ! Uncle 
Dick didn’t do as he threatened after all ; he has 
not been to the school once.” 

“ Oh, he has forgotten all about it,” returned 
Polly. 

But Uncle Dick had not forgotten, as the day’s 


28 


Three Little Cousins 


proceedings proved. Polly was deeply interested 
in school matters, for she had been taught at 
home always, and knew nothing of routine and 
system, which, even in a small school, must be 
carried on. She had gone as a visitor with Molly 
when the rules were not so strictly enforced, for 
in the last warm days of the term Miss Ainslee 
was lenient and Polly thought school life per- 
fectly delightful with easy lessons and ever so 
many interesting things said and done by both 
teacher and pupils. 

The two little girls were sitting side by side, 
listening attentively to Miss Ainslee’s account of 
the early Britons, when the door softly opened 
and a tall young man appeared. He looked 
smilingly around. Molly gave the stifled excla- 
mation : “ Uncle Dick ! ” Polly jumped to her 

feet but sat down again. 

It was a hot morning. The breeze scarcely 
stirred the leaves of the wistaria vines over the 
windows. Once in a while a robin gurgled out 
his cheerful song which Molly always declared 
reminded her of cherry juice ; the little girls in 
thin frocks fanned themselves behind the rows of 
desks. Miss Ainslee’s back was toward the door 


Uncle Dick at School 


29 


and she kept on with the reading, not having 
heard the intruder who presently made a step 
forward and gave a roguish glance in Molly’s di- 
rection, to that young person’s confusion, for the 
color mounted to her cheeks. What was he go- 
ing to do she wondered. He gave an apolo- 
getic little cough which caused Miss Ainslee to 
look up from her book with a surprised expres- 
sion. 

“Isn’t it most time for recess ?” asked IJncle 
Dick gently. 

Miss Ainslee glanced at the clock. “Why 
yes,” she replied, her surprise more evident. 

“ That’s what my sister said, and as it is such 
a warm morning we thought — she thought some 
ice cream would be refreshing to you all, so she 
has sent over a freezer; I told the man to set it 
outside.” 

Pleased giggles issued from the little girls be- 
hind the desks. 

“ I never thought,” continued Dick, “ but per- 
haps I ought — we ought to have furnished 
dishes and spoons. You couldn’t eat it from the 
ink-Avells, I suppose.” He turned to the children 
who again giggled delightedly. 


3 ° 


Three Little Cousins 


“Oh, I think we can manage in an emer- 
gency,” said Miss Ainslee. “We have a small 
cooking class here on Saturday mornings and 
there is quite a supply of dishes in the cup- 
board yonder. I think we can make them go 
around.” 

Dick’s smile grew wistful as he said : “ It was 
pretty hot coming over here, but I don’t suppose 
you could ask me to have some of the cream 
with you ; I’m not a little girl, you know, and I 
perceive you don’t take boys.” 

A tremulous little smile danced about the cor- 
ners of Miss Ainslee’s mouth as she moved 
toward the cupboard. 

“ I could help to dish it out at least,” Dick 
added hastily. “ I could do that beautifully, 
couldn’t I, Polly ? ” He turned to his niece. 

“ Oh, you are Molly’s uncle, aren’t you ? ” The 
puzzled expression with which Miss Ainslee was 
regarding him changed to one of understanding. 
“ She has been talking of you for the past month. 
Certainly stay. I shall be very glad of your 
help.” 

Dick cast a triumphant look at Molly. “ Then 
I’ll go right out and take off the ice from the 


Uncle Dick at School 31 

freezer,” be said. “ Will you have the cream in 
here or out there ? ” 

^‘Out there, I think,” returned Miss Ainslee. 
“I like the children to take their recess out of 
doors whenever they can. I will bring out the 
plates and spoons.” 

“ No, don't,” said Dick. J ust show me where 
they are. Oh, I see : among the gallipots and 
things. You please go and get the kids — I mean 
the little girls all settled and I will play butler.” 

To this Miss Ainslee would not consent, but 
she dismissed the children who fled out with ex- 
cited whispers, and presently, to their great satis- 
faction, they were served with heaping saucers 
of ice cream and delicious little cakes. Once or 
twice Molly and Polly ventured near to where 
their uncle and Miss Ainslee were sitting under 
a great tree, but each time that they appeared 
Uncle Dick would say in a strong voice: “I 
want to inquire about Molly’s marks. Miss 
Ainslee. How is she getting on with her arith- 
metic ? ” As this was Molly’s bugbear, she would 
move off hastily whenever the study was men- 
tioned while Uncle Dick looked after her with a 
twinkle in his eye. He politely took his leave 


32 Three Little Cousins 

after recess was over, though some of Molly’s 
friends clamored for him to stay and tell them 
stories of the great west, for they had heard of 
his powers in that direction. He refused to 
stay, however, though he promised that he would 
come again, if Miss Ainslee would permit. 

The girls all gathered around their teacher 
when the visitor had gone, and were loud in 
their praises of Molly Shelton’s uncle. But 
Molly herself said never a word, though after 
school was dismissed she crept up to Miss Ainslee 
and whispered : “ Did you tell him I never do 
get half my examples right ? ” 

Miss Ainslee put her arm around her and 
whispered back: “No, dear, I didn’t, for it 
wouldn’t have been true. Sometimes you do 
get more than half of them right.” 

“ I do try,” said Molly wistfully. 

“ I know you do,” returned Miss Ainslee, giv- 
ing her a hug. So Molly went home satisfied 
that after all her uncle’s visit to the school meant 
only good will and not a desire to discover the 
weak spots in his niece’s record. 

Uncle Dick made a second visit to the school 
at another recess hour when it threatened rain 



i 



Mollie, Wearing a Long Silken Gown, Swept In, 


Uncle Dick at School 


33 


and he brought umbrellas for Molly and Polly, 
and rain it did, coming down in such torrents for 
a while that he accepted the shelter offered, and, 
while the thunder rolled and the lightning flashed, 
told the children such thrilling stories as com- 
pletely absorbed the attention of the whole 
school, and no one thought of being afraid of the 
storm. 

Then came the last day of the term when Uncle 
Dick, as invited guest, came with Mrs. Shelton 
to see the pretty Garden of Verses which Miss 
Ainslee had arranged for the closing entertain- 
ment. Even Polly took part in that and re- 
peated the lines : 

“A birdie with a yellow bill 
Hopped upon the window sill, 

Cocked his shining eye and said, 

Min’t you ’shamed, you sleepy -head ! ’ ” 

while Molly, wearing a long silken gown, swept 
in with rustling skirt to say : 

“ Whenever auntie moves around 
Her dresses make a curious sound ; 

They trail behind her up the floor, 

And trundle after through the door.” 


She was called to the front of the little stage 


34 


Three Little Cousins 


to receive the bunch of lovely roses her Uncle 
Dick sent her, and felt very grand when they 
were handed up to her. Polly, too, came in for 
her share of flowers, though hers were sweet- 
peas because her name began with P. However, 
that did not account for the white bell-like blos- 
soms which were presented to Miss Ainslee, 
though Polly explained it by saying, “ She is a 
belle, you know,” and did not see the whole joke 
till she remembered Miss Ainslee’s first name. 

To Polly, Miss Ainslee was a paragon of per- 
fection. She had never before known so dainty 
and pretty a young lady. The tutor which she 
and her brothers had was a young man who had 
gone to Colorado for his health, and when 
stranded in Denver was chanced upon by Dick 
Keid who befriended him and brought him home, 
where he was glad enough to teach the niece and 
nephews of his former college mate. Miss Ainslee 
was a teacher of quite another stamp and ardent 
little Polly adored her. 

When the little girls had returned from the 
closing exercises of the school, their thoughts 
turned to the next excitement which was the 
journey northward with Uncle Dick. They were 


Uncle Dick At School 3 ? 

to start the very next morning, and their trunks 
stood ready to go. 

As they entered the hall, Mrs. Shelton picked 
up a letter which the postman had just brought. 
It had a foreign postmark, and Molly knew it 
must be from her Aunt Evelyn, her Uncle Ar- 
thur’s wife, who lived in England. Mrs. Shelton 
sat down in the library and opened the letter. 
She had read only a few lines when she ex- 
claimed : “ Well, I declare ! ” 

“ What is it, mother ? ” asked Molly. “ What 
does Aunt Evelyn say ? How is Mary ? ” 

“ She is better, and what do you think, Molly ? 
Uncle Arthur is coming over and is going to 
bring Mary with him. They are on their way.” 

“ Oh, Polly ! Polly ! ” cried Molly, “ what do 
you think ? Our Cousin Mary is coming. Three 
Marys in one house and all named after the same 
grandmother. Tell us more, mother. When are 
they coming and how long are they going to stay, 
and all about it. Are they going to Aunt Ada’s 
with us ? ” 

“ Wait a minute,” said Mrs. Shelton, scanning 
the final page of her letter. Molly watched her 
till she read the last word. “ It is this way,” 


Three Little Cousins 


36 

Mrs. Shelton told her; ^‘your Uncle Arthur has 
to come to America on business and Mary, you 
know, has not been very well, so when the doctor 
advised a sea voyage. Uncle Arthur decided to 
bring Mary with him and leave her with some of 
us while he should travel about to look after 
his business matters. It was all determined upon 
very hurriedly and Aunt Evelyn is much con- 
cerned lest she is giving us a charge we may not 
wish to undertake. However, I shall hasten to 
let her know that we shall be delighted to wel- 
come Mary. My own little niece whom I have 
never seen ! It is a great happiness to have both 
my nieces here this summer.” She smiled at 
Polly. 

“ But when is she coming ? ” asked Molly. 

“ In about a week I should judge.” 

“ Oh, we will be gone then,” said Molly, turn- 
ing to Polly. She hardly knew whether to be 
glad or sorry of the fact. 

“ I am glad I determined to wait a little later 
before going away with your father,” continued 
Mrs. Shelton, “ for now I shall be here to receive 
Arthur and Marj% and can bring Mary up with 
me on the way to Rangeley. Aunt Ada will be 


Uncle Dick at School 


37 


perfectly delighted to know she is to have a visit 
from Mary, for she has asked so many times that 
her parents would lend her for a summer.’’ 

^^It will be just lovely to expect her,” said 
Molly hospitably. ‘‘ I do hope we shall like her, 
mother, and that she will be as easy to get 
acquainted with as Polly is. I feel as if I had 
always known Polly ; she is just like a sister.” 

I fancy you will find Mary somewhat differ- 
ent from Polly,” said Mrs. Shelton, remembering 
her sister-in-law’s exact little ways, and thinking 
of Polly’s unfettered life on the ranch. “ How- 
ever, I am sure she is a dear child and that we 
shall love her very dearly.” 

“ I wish she had been here to see the Garden 
of Yersesand our costumes,” said Polly, who was 
quite carried away by the morning’s performance. 

“ Oh, I suppose she sees much finer things in 
England,” said Molly. I suppose she dresses 
much finer, too, than we do. Why, there are 
kings and queens and princesses over there, and 
they wear ermine and crowns and tiaras.” 

‘‘ I haven’t the least idea what a tiara is,” said 
Polly. 

“ I don’t know exactly myself,” acknowledged 


Three Little Cousins 


38 

Molly, “but I know it is something you wear on 
your head and it is studded with diamonds or 
some kind of precious stones.” 

' “Maybe it is some kind of hat,” ventured 
Polly. 

Molly wasn’t quite sure, but she wondered if 
Mary would have one. “ At least she can tell us 
what it is like,” she remarked to Polly. 

Mrs. Shelton had hurried from the room to tell 
the news to her brother and the little girls were 
left in the library alone. Molly was thinking- 
very seriously. Presently she said : “ Polly Per- 
rine, if you will never, never tell any one. I’ll tell 
you something. Cross 3four heart you won’t tell.” 

Polly promptly crossed her heart. “ I won’t 
tell,” she assured her cousin. 

“ Then,” said Molly looking furtively around, 
“ I am not sure I am glad Mary is coming.” 

“ Oh, why not ? ” asked Polly, looking the 
least bit shocked. 

“ Why, she may be prim and fusty and spoil 
our plays. I notice often that two girls can play 
together beautifully, but when a third one comes 
she is sure to want to do something that one of 
the others doesn’t like and either breaks up the 


Uncle Dick at School 


39 


play or gets mad and goes off making you feel 
sort of hurt and queer inside. You know it is 
hard to please everybody and the more people 
you have to please the harder it is.” 

Polly pondered upon this philosophy of her 
cousin’s. “ Well,” she said finally, “ perhaps if 
she doesn’t like to play our way, she can find 
some one else to play with.” 

“ Of course she can. I never thought of that,” 
said Molly in a relieved tone. “ I remember 
now before I knew you were coming mother told 
me that Mrs. Wharton was going to have her 
granddaughter with her this summer, and I was 
very glad because the Mowbrays have gone 
abroad, and I expected to have them to play 
with. Now we can pair off ; you and I can go 
together and Mary can go with Grace Wharton. 
I don’t suppose,” she added after a minute, “ that 
it would be quite polite always to have it that 
way, for Mary is our own cousin and we can’t 
shove her off on a stranger.” 

“ Maybe we shall not want to,” said Polly. “ If 
she is real nice, Molly, we won’t mind taking 
turns, or we can all three play together when the 
Wharton girl isn’t there.” 


40 


Three Little Cousins 


“ But don’t you ever, ever tell that I said 1 
wasn’t sure of wanting Mary,” said Molly im- 
pressively. 

Polly promised, and just then they were called 
to luncheon and went down-stairs with their 
arms around each other. 























CHAPTER III 
Maty 

A WEEK later the family was settled for the 
summer in Miss Ada Eeid’s cottage by the sea. 
In front of them was a stretch of green ; beyond 
were the jagged rocks, and then came the ocean. 
The landing was some distance from the cottage 
and was upon the bay side of the peninsula, so, 
although Polly had caught glimpses of the sea 
during her journey, she did not have a clear view 
of the wide expanse until they had nearly reached 
the house and the great blue ocean spread out 
before her. Then she danced up and down with 
sheer joy. 

‘^It is just as big and just as blue as I 
thought,” she cried. ‘‘ Oh, I am so happy ! I am 
so happy ! ” 

Molly was delighted at Polly’s enthusiasm, for 
she, too, loved the sea and the rocks and the 
wide stretches of grassy hummocks. ‘‘ There is 
the cottage,” she told her cousin ; ‘‘ the one peep- 
ing over that little hill. It looks just like a 


44 


Three Little Cousins 


brownie, doesn’t it, with its surprised window- 
eyes ? I always call the cottage ‘ The Brownie,’ 
and Aunt Ada says it is a very good name for it, 
because it is a sort of brown.” 

“ I should call it gray,” said Polly. 

“ It is really gray, but it is a sort of brownish 
gray, and anyhow I like the name of Brownie 
for it. There is Aunt Ada on the porch watch- 
ing for us.” 

Miss Keid came running out to meet them. 
She gave Molly a hug and a kiss and then turned 
to her other niece. “ And this is our Polly, isn’t 
it ? ” she said. “ Bless the dear ; I am so glad to 
see her. Come along in all of you ; I know you 
are as hungry as hunters and I have dinner all 
waiting.” 

“ Oh, Aunt Ada, is there to be baked mack- 
erel ? ” asked Molly. 

“ Yes, and lobster salad, too.” 

“ Are the wild roses in bloom yet, and are the 
wild strawberries ripe ? ” queried Molly. 

“ The strawberries are trying to get ripe, but 
I haven’t seen a single wild rose yet. Come 
right in ; I know by Dick’s eager look that he is 
ready for my baked mackerel. 1 have Luella 


45 


Mary 

Barnes to help me this year,’’ she whispered, 
and she has a big white satin bow in her hair 
because we have a young man as guest.” She 
laughed mirthfully and Polly thought the way 
her eyes squeezed up was perfectly fascinating. 
Her Aunt Ada had visited Colorado when Polly 
was a baby, but, of course, Polly did not remem- 
ber it, nor would her aunt have recognized her 
baby niece in the little rosy-cheeked girl before 
her. 

“ This is something like our house,” said Polly, 
looking around with a pleased expression at the 
un plastered room with its simple furnishings. 

“ Then you will feel at home,” said her aunt. 
‘‘ Take off your hats, girlies, while I see to dinner, 
for you know the necessity, Molly, of looking 
after things yourself up this way.” 

Just here Luella appeared. She was a tall, 
angular young woman with a mass of fair hair, 
very blue eyes and a tiny waist. The white satin 
bow was conspicuous, and as she caught sight of 
Dick Keid she simpered and giggled in what the 
little girls thought a very silly way since it dis- 
played Luella’s bad teeth to which she evidently 
never gave the least attention. However, they 


Three Little Cousins 


46 

all soon forgot everything but satisfying their 
appetites with the baked mackerel, deliciously 
fresh, the roasted potatoes, young peas and lob- 
ster salad. 

“ These taste so different from canned things,” 
said Polly, passing up her plate for a second 
helping of lobster. 

Luella reached out a bony arm and took the 
plate. “ I’m glad to see you can eat hearty,” she 
remarked. “ Give her a real good help, Mr. 
Keid.” 

Molly giggled, though she knew the ways of 
the “ hired help ” her aunt employed in the sum- 
mer. Aunt Ada gave her a warning look, for the 
natives were quick to take offense and Miss Ada 
had no wish to be left with no one in the 
kitchen. “ And when is Mary coming ? ” she 
asked. 

“ Oh, we don’t know exactly,” Molly told her. 
“ Mother will bring her up when she and papa 
go to Kangeley. Mother thought it would be in 
about a week. What will you do with three 
little girls to look after. Aunt Ada ? ” 

“ Oh, I expect them to look after me,” re- 
turned Miss Ada. 


47 


Mdiy 

“ And if they don’t do that properly, or if they 
get obstreperous,” put in Uncle Dick, “ it is the 
easiest thing in the world to throw them over- 
board. I’ll do it for you, Ada ; the rocks are 
very handy, and it will not be much of a job.” 

Polly made a face at him. “I know how 
much you’ll throw us over,” she said. “You’d 
better not try it with me, you sinful evil-doer.” 

“ You see what is before you, Ada,” said Dick. 
“ You’ll rue the day you consented to have three 
nieces with you for a whole summer; yet,” he 
shook his head and said darkly, “ I know what 
can be done if worse comes to worst.” 

“ "What then, Mr. Dicky-Picky ? ” said Polly. 

“ That’s for me to know and for you to find 
out,” he replied. 

“My, ain’t she sassy?” said Luella in a loud 
whisper to Miss Ada, “but then he ain’t no 
more’n a boy the way he talks.” 

This was too much for Dick who could not 
keep his face straight as he rose from the table 
quickly. “ Who’s for the rocks, the cove or the 
woods ? ” he asked. 

“ The rocks, the rocks, first,” cried both little 
girls. 


48 


Three Little Cousins 


“I want to show Polly the dear little pools 
where the star-fish are, and the cave under the 
rocks where we found the sea-urchins and whero 
those queer bluey, diamondy shining things are,’"' 
said Molly. 

Polly squeezed her hand. “ Oh, I’m so eA- 
cited,” she said. “ I have been just wild to see 
all those things.” 

“ You shall see them in short order,” her uncle 
told her. “We keep our aquarium in the front 
garden.” 

“ Where is the garden ? ” asked Polly in- 
nocently. 

Her uncle laughed as he led the way over the 
hummocks down the rugged path to the rocks. 
Here they clambered over crags and barnacled 
boulders till they came to a quiet pool reflecting 
the blue of the sky. Its sides were fringed with 
floating sea-weeds and it was peopled by many 
sorts of strange creatures which thrived upon 
the supplies brought in by the ocean with its 
tides. A green crab scuttled out of sight under 
some pebbles; a purple stai’-fish crept softly from 
behind a bunch of waving crimson weeds : a sea- 


49 


Maty 

anemone opened and shut its living petals ; by 
peering under the shelving rock one could see 
the dainty shell of a sea-urchin. 

Polly gazed astonished at the pool’s wonders. 
“ It is like fairy-land,” she whispered. “ I never 
saw anything so beautiful. Can we come here 
every day and will the little pools with these 
queer creatures always be just this way ? ” 

“ We can always come at low tide,” Molly told 
her. 

“Then I’ll always come down here at this 
time every day.” 

“ But it will not be low tide always at this 
time,” said Molly. 

“ Oh, won’t it ? ” returned inland little Polly, 
quite taken aback. “ Why won’t it ? ” 

Then her uncle told her how the coming in of 
the tide changes just as the rising of the moon 
does, and that one must know the difference in 
time to be sure. Then he went on to explain 
something about the small creatures which 
inhabited the pools, the barnacles which covered 
the rocks up to a certain point. 

“Why don’t the barnacles go any higher?” 


TTiree Little Cousins 


50 

asked Polly. “ I should think they would grow 
and grow just like grass does over bare places in 
the ground. 

“ They extend only to high water-mark,” her 
uncle told her, “ for you see they are fed by the 
ocean. If you will watch closely, you can see 
them open and close as the waves come and go.” 

“ Isn’t it wonderful ? ” said Polly in an awe- 
struck voice. 

“ I like it best when the tide is up,” remarked 
Molly, “ for I don’t think all that dark sea- weed 
that covers the rocks is very pretty.” 

Polly looked down at the long ropes of sea- 
weed which clung to the craggy places beneath 
them. “It makes the rocks look just like 
buffaloes or some strange kind of animals,” she 
said. “ I shall call that Buffalo Rock, and that 
other the Lion’s Den, for it looks like a lion 
lying down.” 

“ There is a dear place further down,” said 
Molly. “ It is sheltered from the wind and we 
have tea there sometimes. There is a cunning 
fireplace that Uncle Dick built there last year. 
I wonder if it is still standing. Let’s go and 
see.” 


Maiy 51 

They followed the shore a little further and 
found a flat rock not far below the top of the 
bluff. The fireplace was nearly as they had left 
it, and only required a few stones to make it as 
good as new. Molly viewed it with a satisfied 
air as her uncle topped it with a final stone. 
“ There,” she exclaimed, ‘‘ it is ready for our first 
afternoon tea ! We’ll toast marshmallows, too, 
as soon as we can get some at the store.” 

‘‘Why can’t we get them to-day?” asked 
Polly who did not want to put off such a 
pleasure. 

“ Because Mr. Hobbs never has any before the 
Fourth of July. He always gets in his good 
things then, but never a day sooner or later. I 
know him of old,” said Dick. 

“ By that time Mary will be here,” said Molly 
thoughtfully, “ and we can have our first tea- 
party in her honor.” 

“Yes, and she can help us make our Fourth,” 
said Uncle Dick, laughing. “ She has never 
known our great and glorious Fourth over there 
in England.” 

“Of course not,” said Polly. “I forgot she 
was a wicked Britisher.” 


52 


Three Little Cousins 


“ Not very wicked,” said Uncle Dick. 

“ But we must never let her think we have any 
grudge against her because we were the ones that 
won the Kevolution,” said Molly. “ It wouldn’t 
be polite to pick at her because she isn’t an 
American. Do you suppose she will be very 
snippy, Polly ? and will be disagreeable and run 
down America ? ” 

“Oh, my, I hope not; I’d hate her to be 
that way,” returned Polly alarmed at such a 
prospect. “It would be dreadful for us to be 
quarreling all the time and of course we couldn’t 
keep still if she runs down our country. What 
shall we do if she does ? ” 

“ Send her to me,” said Uncle Dick. 

This settled the matter and was a relief to 
both little girls, who considered that what Uncle 
Dick didn’t know was not worth knowing, be- 
sides he had a smiling way of putting down 
persons who bragged too much, as the cousins 
well knew. 

“ I am just crazy to see her, and yet somehow 
I dread it,” Polly told Molly. 

Molly confessed to much the same feeling and 
declared that she would be glad when the first 


53 


Maty 

meeting was over and they were all acquainted. 
Then she undertook to show Polly more of her 
favorite haunts and it was suppertime before 
they had begun to see all they wished to. 

The next week Mary arrived with Mrs. Shelton 
who remained but a short time before she re- 
sumed her journey. Mary was a slim, pale, 
plainly-dressed little girl who looked not at all 
as her cousins imagined. She did not seem shy 
but she had little to say at first, sitting by her- 
self in a corner of the porch as soon as dinner 
was over and answering only such questions as 
were put to her. 

“ Did you have a pleasant trip ? ” asked Molly 
by way of beginning the acquaintance. 

“ No,” returned Mary. “ Fancy being seasick 
nearly all the way.” 

“ Oh, were you ? Wasn’t that disagree- 
able?” 

“ Most disagreeable,” returned Mary. 

There was silence for a few minutes and then 
Mary put her first question : Do you always 
eat your meals with your parents, or only when 
you are at a curious place like this ? ” 

‘‘ Why, we always do,” Polly answered. 


54 


Three Little Cousins 


“ Where would you expect us to eat them ? In 
the kitchen ? ” 

“ No,” returned Mary ; “ in the nursery.” 

“ There is no nursery here, you know,” Molly 
informed her. 

“Yes, I know; that is why I asked. But in 
the city, or in your own home you have a 
nursery ? ” 

“ Yes, we have,” Polly told her, “ but we don’t 
eat there.” 

“ Really ? ” Mary looked much surprised. 
“ And do you come to the table with the grown 
persons ? ” 

“ Why, certainly.” 

“ How curious ! ” 

Polly looked at Molly. “ Don’t you ever go 
to the table with your parents ? ” asked Polly. 

“ Sometimes we go for dessert.” 

“ Well,” returned Polly, “if I couldn’t stay all 
the time, I must say I’d like better to come in 
for dessert than just for soup.” 

Mary looked serious, but Molly laughed. 
“ Don’t you want to go down on the rocks with 
us ? ” asked the latter. 

“ I think I would prefer to sit here,” said Mary. 


55 


Maty 

‘‘ All by yourself ? ” said Molly, surprised. 

‘‘ Oh, yes, I like to be alone/’ 

This was too decided a hint for the others not 
to take, so they marched off together. “ Well,” 
said Polly when they were out of hearing, “ I 
don’t think much of her manners, and I don’t 
think I shall trouble her much with my company. 
She likes to be alone ; well, she will be, as far as 
I am concerned.” 

“ Oh, she feels strange at first,” said Molly by 
way of excusing her English cousin. After 
while she will be more ‘ folksy,’ as Luella says.” 

Well then, when she wants to come with us 
she can say so. I shall not ask her, I know. 
She is just like what I was afraid she would be : 
stand-offish and airish. She reminds me of ‘ the 
cat that walks by herself.’ I was always afraid 
the girls I might meet would be that way.” 

At this Molly looked quite hurt. 

“ Oh, I don’t mean you,” Polly went on, put- 
ting her arm around her cousin to reassure her. 
‘‘ You are just dear, Molly. I loved you right 
away.” 

Molly’s hurt feelings disappeared at this. “ I 
am sure,” she remarked, ‘‘ Mary needn’t be so high 


Three Little Cousins 

and mighty ; she hasn’t half as pretty clothes as 
we have.” 

“ And she doesn’t look nice in those she does 
have,” returned Polly. 

From this the two went on from one criticism 
to another till finally they worked themselves up 
into quite hard feelings against Mary, and re- 
solved to let her quite alone and not invite her to 
join their plays. This plan they began to carry 
out the next day to such a marked extent that 
their Aunt Ada noticed it. 

“I did suppose Molly and Polly would want to 
show more hospitality to their little English 
cousin,” she said to her brother. 

Dick smiled. “They will in time,” he said. 
“ A dose of their own medicine might do them 
good.” 

“Perhaps Mary has really said something to 
offend them,” said Miss Ada thoughtfully, “or 
possibly they misunderstand each other’s ways. 
I will watch them for a day or two and try to 
discover what is wrong.” She kept Mary at her 
side after this, and when she was not doing some- 
thing to entertain her, Dick was, till both Molly 
and Polly began to add jealous pangs to their other 


57 


Mary 

grievances, yet they would only sidle up to their 
aunt and uncle or would sit near enough to hear 
what was said without joining in the conversa- 
tion. 

“They are jealous; that’s what it is, poor 
dears,” said their aunt to herself. “ I must 
gather them all together in some way.” So the 
next evening when she and Mary were established 
in a cozy corner by the open fire, she called the 
other two little girls. “ Come here, lassies. 
Mary has been telling me some very interesting 
things about England. Don’t you want to hear 
them, too ? ” 

Molly and Polly came nearer and sat on the 
edge of the wood-box together. 

“ Now,” said Miss Ada, “ I think it would be a 
good way to pass the time if each were to tell 
her most exciting experience. Mary can tell of 
something that happened to her in England; 
Polly can give us some experience of hers in Col- 
orado, and Molly can choose her own locality. 
Molly, you are the eldest by a month or two, 
you can begin.” 

Molly was silent for a few minutes and then 
she began. “My most exciting time was last 


Three Little Cousins 


58 

fall when we were going home from here. "We 
took the early boat, you remember, Aunt Ada, 
and the sea was very rough. We were about 
half way to the city when a tremendous wave 
rushed toward us and we were all thrown down 
on deck. I went banging against the rail, but 
Uncle Dick caught me, though he said if the rail 
hadn’t been strong we all might have been 
washed off into the sea. It was two or three 
minutes before we could get to our feet and I 
was awfully scared ; so was everybody.” 

“ It was not rough at all when we came down 
here from the city,” remarked Mary. 

“It is usually very smooth,” said Miss Ada, 
“ but the time of which Molly speaks it was un- 
usually rough and we all had reason to be terri- 
fied. Now your tale, Polly.” 

Polly sat looking into the fire for a moment 
before she said, “ I think the time I was most 
scared was once when Uncle Dick and I were rid- 
ing home on our ponies. It was most dark and 
the sun vras dropping behind the mountains ; it 
always seems lonely and solemn then anyhow. I 
wasn’t riding my own pony that day for he had 
hurt his foot, so I had Buster, Ted’s broncho : 


Maty 59 

I'd often been on him. before and I wasn’t a bit 
afraid to ride him. Well, we were coming along 
pretty fast because it was getting so late and we 
were a good distance from home. Of course 
there were no houses nearer than ours, and that 
was three miles away. I was a little ahead when 
a jack-rabbit jumped up right before Buster’s 
nose and he lit out and ran for all he was worth. 
I held on tight, but he kept running and pretty 
soon I saw we were making toward a bunch of 
cattle. Buster used to be a cattle pony and I 
thought : suppose that bunch should stampede 
and I should get into the thick of them. I was 
always more scared of a stampede than anything 
else. Well, the cattle did begin to run but I 
jerked at Buster’s bridle and managed to work 
him little by little away from the cattle, but he 
never stopped running till we got home and then 
I just tumbled off on the ground, somehow, and 
sat there crying till Uncle Dick came up. He 
had no idea that Buster was doing anything I 
didn’t want him to, but just thought I was going 
fast for a joke and because I wanted to get home.” 

“I think that was tremendously exciting,” 
commented Molly, “ and I think you were very 


6o 


Three Little Cousins 


brave, for it lasted so long. It is easy to be brave 
for a minute, but not for so long.” 

“ Fancy living in such a wild country,” re- 
marked Mary. 

“ Oh, but it is beautiful,” said Polly enthusi- 
astically. “ The mountains are bigger than any- 
thing you can imagine, and it is so fine and free. 
Oh, you don’t know till you see it.” 

“ I am quite sure I should like England better,” 
declared Mary positively. “London is much 
finer than New York, which is very ugly, I think, 
and our dear little villages are so pretty. I never 
saw such queer tumble-down places as you have 
here in the country. I think our hedge-rows and 
lanes are much prettier.” 

“Never mind, now,” said Miss Ada gently. 
“ Tell us about your most exciting time.” 

“ Keally, I never did anything very exciting, 
you know,” returned Mary. “Once I was in 
Kensington Gardens and got lost from nurse. I 
was frightfully scared for a little while. How- 
ever, I sat quite still and she came up after 
a bit.” 

Molly gave Polly a little nudge ; it seemed a 
very tame experience after Polly’s wild ride. 


“I am afraid Mary is something of a little 
prig,” said Miss Ada to her brother when the lit- 
tle girls had gone to bed. 

“ Polly will broaden her views if any one can,” 
said Uncle Dick. “ Don’t let her flock by herself 
too much, Ada ; it isn’t good for her, and she 
needs a little Americanizing.” 

“ I don’t think Polly will be harmed by Mary’s 
gentleness. She has such a charming voice and 
Polly might well subdue hers.” 

“ They’ll do one another good,” repeated Uncle 
Dick. 





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CHAPTER IV 
The Rhinestone Pin 

In spite of Miss Ada’s efforts to bring the three 
little cousins nearer together, it was some time 
before they actually did become real friends : 
Mary, seeing that anything she could say against 
America aroused a fierce contradiction from 
Polly, slyly teased her whenever she could, and 
Polly, who was loyal to the backbone, grew more 
and more indignant, often on the verge of tears, 
rushing to her aunt or uncle with a tale of Mary’s 
abuse of her beloved country. 

‘‘ And her father is an American, too. I don’t 
see how she can do it,” she complained one morn- 
ing. “ She is half American herself, and I told 
her so.” 

“ What did she say ? ” asked Aunt Ada. 

“ She said she was born in England and so was 
her mother, so of course she was English, amd be- 
sides, although her father was once American, 
that now he lives in England sq he must be Eng- 


66 


Three Little Cousins 


lish, too. She makes fun of everything, or at 
least she sniffs at us and our ways all the time. 
Now, is that polite. Aunt Ada ? I live in the 
Avest, but I’d be ashamed to make fun of the 
east.” 

“ I think Mary will learn better after awhile, 
when she has been here longer.” 

“ I wish I could show her what my mother 
wrote to me in the letter that I had from her this 
morning,” said Polly. Then, with a sudden 
thought. “ Aunt Ada, won’t you read it aloud to 
all three of us ? ” 

“ Bring it to me,” said Miss Ada, “ and I will 
see.” 

Polly ran off and came back with the letter 
which her aunt read over carefully, nodding ap- 
provingly from time to time. “ Where are the 
others ? ” she asked presently. 

“ Out on the porch,” Polly told her. 

Miss Ada picked up her knitting bag and Polly 
followed her to a sheltered corner where Molly 
and Mary were playing with a store of pebbles 
they had picked up on the shore. 

“ Polly has had such a nice letter from her 
mother,” said Miss Ada. “ Don’t you all Avant 


The Rhinestone Pin 67 

to hear it ? She gives such interesting accounts 
of things out there, and Mary will get quite an 
idea of ranch life from it.” She sat down and 
read the pages which were full of a pleasant re- 
cital of every-day doings, interesting to those un- 
accustomed to the great west, and more interest- 
ing to Polly. At the last came these words: 
“ There is one thing I want my little girl to re- 
member : the essence of good breeding comes 
from a good heart. It is both unkind and ill-bred 
to give offense in a house where hospitality is 
shown you, to find fault or criticise what is set 
before you, to draw comparisons between the lo- 
cality where you live and that which you are vis- 
iting so that the latter will appear in a bad light. 
Persons who have not been accustomed to the 
society of well-bred people think it is very smart 
to find fault with things which are different from 
those with which they have been familiar. Now, 
I don’t want my Polly to be that way, and I must 
ask her not to be so rude as to abuse hospitality 
by belittling the customs of a house or the town, 
state or locality in which it is. I want my Polly 
to be considered a true lady, even if she is from 
the wild and woolly west.” 


68 


Three Little Cousins 


Mary looked a little startled while this reading 
was going on and when Polly stole a glance at 
her she became very red in the face and turned 
away her head, but to Polly’s great satisfaction, 
from that time she was less ready to criticise 
things American. In consequence warm-hearted 
little Polly tried to be magnanimous and because 
Aunt Ada asked her to help her to show a gener- 
ous hospitality, she overlooked Mary’s praise of 
England, and would answer her remarks by say- 
ing : “ Well, we have some nice things, too.” Her 
clear loud voice, moreover, she tried to tone down 
when Aunt Ada told her to notice the difference 
between her way of speaking and Mary’s. As to 
Mary the benefits of her visit were only be- 
ginning to tell. Later they showed more plainly, 
but it was not till there was much heart-burning 
and many tears were shed. 

It all began in this way : Molly rushed in one 
morning, her face all aglow with the importance 
of the news she had to tell. “ Oh, Aunt Ada,” 
she cried, “they are going to have a dress-up 
party at Green Island hall, fancy costumes, you 
know, and we are all invited, you and Uncle Dick 
and we children. The Ludlows have come and 


The Rhinestone Pin 69 

it is Miss Kitty’s birthday. Will you go ? and 
what can we wear ? ” 

“ Oh, mayn’t I be a grown-up lady and wear a 
long skirt?” asked Mary. ‘‘I have always 
longed to do that.” 

“ Why, 1 am sure I don’t object,” replied Miss 
Ada. “ Tell me more about it, Molly. Where did 
you find out all this ? ” 

“ I met Edgar Ludlow just now, and he gave 
me this note,” and Molly thrust an envelope into 
her aunt’s hand. “He told me all about the 
party.” 

Miss Ada opened the note and read : 

“ Dear Ada : 

“ Come over to the hall to-morrow night, 
you and your brother, and bring the youngsters. 
We are going to celebrate my birthday by dress- 
ing up in any old thing we can find around the 
house. Come in any character you choose, from 
the Queen of Sheba to a beggar maid, only don’t 
fail to come and bring the girlies. 

“ Lovingly, 

“ Kitty.” 

The three cousins watched their aunt’s face 
anxiously. “You will go, won’t you, Aunt 
Ada ? ” asked Polly. 


70 


Three Little Cousins 


“ I most certainly will. The first thing to do 
is to see what odds and ends I have in the attic.” 

From this time on for the next two days there 
was great excitement everywhere in the house, 
for with five costumes to devise out of scraps, 
Miss Ada had her hands full. But when the 
moment came for them all to start forth, each one 
had been provided with something suitable. 
Miss Ada herself wore a Puritan cap and ker- 
chief which distinguished her as Priscilla, the 
Puritan maiden; Uncle Dick looked stunning, 
his nieces agreed, as a Venetian gondolier; Mary 
was perfectly happy with a long trained skirt, 
short waist and powdered hair, her crowning 
glory being a pin which her aunt had lent her ; 
it was set with rhinestones, which in her innocence 
she mistook for real diamonds, but she was so de- 
lighted with the shining brilliants that Miss Ada 
did not have the heart to undeceive her. Polly 
insisted upon going as the wild Indian her uncle 
had suggested to Molly that she looked like, and 
though her costume did not accord very well with 
her fair hair, she was painted up skilfully and 
with blanket, beads and moccasins was quite con- 
tent. Molly made a pretty butterfly with yel- 



With Five Costumes To Devise Out Of Scraps, Miss Ada Had 
Her Hands Full. 


i iw 




The Rhinestone Hn 


71 


low paper wings, and as they all set out across 
the hummocks to the little landing every one was 
entirely satisfied. Green Island was not far 
away, and, as it was bright moonlight these 
nights, no one minded the trip across the narrow 
channel between the point and the island. The 
little hall was gay with decorations of J apanese 
lanterns and wild flowers, and looked so festive 
that even Mary declared it was perfectly lovely. 

There were not very many children present, 
and the cousins felt quite like grown-ups when 
they danced with Uncle Dick and other young 
men of his age, the music being furnished by 
whoever would volunteer to play two-steps and 
waltzes. Mary felt the necessity of crossing the 
room a great many times that she might have the 
pleasant consciousness of the train sweeping 
behind her. Polly as a dancer did not excel 
except in funny whirls and figures and in a 
Spanish dance which she had learned from her 
father’s Mexican servants, and which won her 
great applause. Molly had danced often enough 
in this very hall to which she had gone every 
summer since she could dance at all. 

It was Mary’s first experience of such an affair 


72 


Three Little Cousins 


where young and old shared the entertainment. 
Never before had she been to any such as- 
semblage which was not intended for children 
alone, and while for some time her friends bad 
been slowly converting her to a more flattering 
view of American ways, this completely won her 
heart, and at once all her childish home festivi- 
ties paled before it. In her enthusiasm she 
turned to Polly and said: “Oh, I do love 
America ! ” and Polly, unmindful of her painted 
face, threw her arms about her and kissed her. 

At ten o’clock the guests departed, and after 
their water trip in a small motor boat, they went 
stumbling home by the light of the moon. 

Luella was there to welcome them, eager to 
hear all the account of the evening’s doings. 
“ You summer folks beat me out ! ” she ex- 
claimed. “ Land ! to see you rig up in all this 
trash and dance them funny dances is as good as 
a circus. I was watching you through the win- 
dows, me and some of the other girls.” 

“Was Granville there?” asked Polly. 

“ You go ’long,” returned Luella, coyly. “ I 
won’t tell you whether he was or not.” The 
girls were much interested in the young fisher- 


The Rhinestone Pin 


73 


man who saw Luella home every night, and 
thought his high-sounding name beautiful. Luella 
had confided to Polly that they were going to 
get married some day and that she had already 
begun to piece her quilts. 

It was something of a task to get off their tog- 
gery and to rid themselves of paint and powder, 
but finally the butterfly wings were unfastened, 
the powder shaken from Mary’s locks and the 
red paint washed from Polly’s face and hands. 
It was during the process of undressing, however, 
that Mary made a discovery which took away all 
the joy of her evening. The beautiful shining 
pin was gone ! She clutched the front of her 
frock where it had been pinned ; she examined 
the fall of lace ; she shook out the folds of the 
skirt. In her distress and fear she commenced 
to search eagerly around on the floor with her 
candle. 

“What are you looking for?” called Polly 
from the next room. 

“ I have dropped a pin,” said Mary, in agita- 
tion. 

“Well, I wouldn’t fuss about it; the mice 
won’t eat it up,” said Polly, sleepily, “ and noth- 


74 


Three Little Cousins 


ing will carry it off in the night. Wait till 
morning and it will be just where you dropped 
it, just the same.” 

This Mary felt to be the truth, and she finally 
crept into bed, still miserable, but hopeful and 
determined to waken early to make a search for 
the precious pin. 

As soon as the sun showed its golden disc over 
the edge of the ocean she was up, creeping softly 
around the room on her hands and knees, and try- 
ing not to waken her sleeping cousins in the next 
room. At last, after she had searched in every 
possible nook and cranny, she concluded that she 
must have lost it on the stairs or on her way 
home, so, after dressing herself, she stole down- 
stairs, looking upon each step as she went, then 
through the living-room and out on the porch. 

The air was soft and sweet. The song-spar- 
rows were singing from the house-tops ; across 
the ocean the sun shone gloriously, and pouring 
its beams upon the dew-sprinkled grass, turned 
their blades into sparkling sheaths which mocked 
poor Mary, searching for false diamonds. No 
one was in sight but a lobsterman out in his 
dory. From one or two chimneys the smoke 


The Rhinestone Pin 


75 


was beginning to curl, showing that there were 
other early risers. Mary stepped along anxiously, 
looking this side and that, and with her hands 
pushing the grass aside in places. Little by little 
^she made her way toward the landing. She 
would search so far and if it were not to be 
found this side the separating channel of water 
she would trust to luck to take her to the island 
later. 

But no pin was to be found that morning, hunt 
faithfully though she did, and the child returned 
to the cottage in great distress of mind. She 
was afraid to confess the loss to her aunt, and she 
could not make up her mind to tell one of her 
cousins. ‘‘I must find it! I must!’’ she ex- 
claimed, clasping her hands as she left the last 
turnstile behind her. ‘‘ I hope, I do hope Aunt 
Ada will not ask for it first thing this morn- 
ing.” 

This Aunt Ada did not do, thinking, indeed, 
no more of the little trinket after having pinned 
it into Mary’s frock. No one noticed that the 
little girl was very quiet at the breakfast table, 
for all were talking merrily over the fun of the 
evening before, and no one observed Mary’s 


Three Little Cousins 


76 

troubled little face nor the fact that she scarcely 
tasted her breakfast. Her Uncle Dick, however, 
at last did remark that Mary had not much to 
say. I am afraid grown-up parties are too 
much for Mary,” he said, after breakfast, draw- 
ing her to his side in the hammock and cuddling 
her to him. ‘‘Are you sleepy, Mary, or don’t 
you feel well ? ” 

Mary leaned her head against his shoulder, 
“ I don’t feel sleepy,” she told him, “ and I am 
onl}’^ a bit tired. Uncle Dick, are diamonds 
the preciousest things in the world?” 

“ Those glittering out there on the grass, do 
you mean? They are fairy diamonds, you know, 
and they disappear as soon as the sun gets 
high up.” 

“ I know. I didn’t mean those ; I meant the 
kind human people wear.” 

“ They are sold at rather a respectable price. 
Are you thinking of investing or are you con- 
sidering the display Miss Millikin made last 
night ? I think I counted thirteen on one hand. 
All are not diamonds that glitter, Mary bud. 
Miss Millikin isn’t a bit more precious because 
of her diamonds, so don’t you go thinking I’ll 


The Rhinestone Pin 


11 

love you any better if you have six diamond 
rings on one hand.” 

“ But they are most costly, aren’t they ? ” 

‘‘They cost like fury. That’s why I can’t be 
engaged to a girl; I can’t afford to buy a 
ring.” 

Mary took this perfectly seriously. “I sup- 
pose six little diamonds would cost as much as 
twenty pounds,” she said. 

“Yes, one might get six, not too big, for that 
price. The little ones cost much less than the 
big one in proportion. A large solitaire costs 
much more than a number of small ones taking 
up as much space. But why this sudden interest 
in diamonds ? Have you twenty pounds to spend 
and are you thinking of spending it all in 
diamonds to take home as a gift to your 
mother ? ” 

“ Oh, no, I have only one pound to spend, and 
mamma wouldn’t wish me to spend all that upon 
her.” 

“Then let’s talk of something else; song- 
sparrows or sand -peeps or sea-gulls, or some- 
thing not so sordid as gold and diamonds. 
Look at that yacht out there, isn’t it a corker ? 


Three Little Cousins 


78 

Now, when I have money to spend I shall not 
buy diamonds, 1 shall buy a yacht. By the way, 
did you know we were all going out sailing this 
afternoon, to Kooky Point ? ” 

‘‘ Are we ?” said Mary listlessly. 

“ Why I thought you would enjoy it. We 
have been talking of this sail for two or three 
days, and you little kitties were wild about it, I 
thought.’’ 

“I am delighted; of course I am,” returned 
Mary with more show of interest. “ Shall we 
take supper there? I heard Aunt Ada and 
Luella talking about sandwiches.” 

“ Yes, that is the intention. We shall not try 
sailing by the outside route but will go around 
by Middle Bay where it is not rough. Polly has 
not tried sailing yet, and we must be sure of 
smooth waters. If it gets too much for her we 
can set her ashore somewhere and she can come 
back by the next steamboat. She is calling you 
now.” 

Mary slipped away to join Polly and Molly. 
“We are going to look for wild strawberries,” 
they said ; “Aunt Ada said we might.” 

“I’m going barefoot,” Polly informed her. 


The Rhinestone Hn 79 

“ but Molly won’t ; she is afraid of taking cold ; 
you aren’t, are you, Mary ? ” 

Mary was most decided in her refusal to take 
off her shoes and stockings, declaring that her 
mother would certainly disapprove, but her heart 
leaped within her when told that they were to 
look for strawberries. She would then have an 
excuse to continue her search for the lost pin, 
and therefore she set for herself the bounds 
which included the path to the landing. But it 
must be confessed that she found few straw- 
berries and was crowed over by the others. 

‘‘ You might have known you couldn’t find 
near so many there along the path,” Polly told 
her. “Why, they are as thick as can be over 
there where nobody walks.” 

Mary made no excuse for her choice, and in- 
deed made no reply. 

“ You aren’t mad, are you?” asked Polly after 
looking at her for a moment. 

Mary shook her head. 

“ Tell me, are you homesick, Mary? I won’t 
tell any one if that is what is the matter.” 

Again only a shake of the head in reply. 

“Well, you needn’t tell if you don’t want 


8o 


Three Little Cousins 


to,’’ said Polly, walking off. She was a quick- 
tempered little soul, easily offended, and when 
Mary decided that she would rather stay at 
home with Luella that afternoon, than run the 
risk of being seasick, Polly made up her mind 
that either Mary really was homesick, or that 
she did not care for the society of her American 
cousins. 

‘‘ I’m not going to insist on playing with her. 
She needn’t think I’m so crazy about it that I 
can’t keep away from her,” she confided to Molly 
after they had set sail. 

Oh, but maybe she really is homesick,” said 
Molly, ‘‘and maybe we ought not to have gone 
away and left her.” 

“But Uncle Dick and Aunt Ada said we 
should.” 

“ That was because Mary was so determined 
not to go. She was seasick nearl}^^ all the way 
coming from England, and Aunt Ada thinks that 
is why she was afraid to go to-day.” 

“ Oh, nonsense ! Nobody could be seasick on 
this smooth water,” said Polly, looking over the 
side of the boat at the blue waves. “Isn’t it 
jolly, Molly ?” 


The Rhinestone Pin 


8i 


Jolly Molly sounds funny,” laughed Molly. 

“ So does jolly Polly,” returned Polly. Then, 
fumbling in her uncle’s pocket, she found a bit 
of paper and a pencil ; in a moment she handed 
to Molly the following brilliant production: 

Golly, Molly, 

It’s jolly, 

Polly 

This sent them both into shrieks of merriment, 
for it took very little to start the two laughing, 
and they soon forgot Mary. 

“ Look here,” called Uncle Dick, “ I shall have 
to make you two laugh the other side of the 
mouth, for you’re tipping the boat all to one 
side. Shift them a little bit further, Ada. 
We’re going to run into the cove for supper.” 

The beautiful little cove made a quiet and safe 
harbor. Here they anchored and made ready to 
make coifee, roast potatoes and toast marsh- 
mallows. 


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CHAPTER V 
Maty and the Boy 

Meanwhile Mary at the cottage was dis- 
consolate enough. To be sure Luella was rather 
a cheerful companion, and even Miss Ada’s 
Maltese kitten, Cosey, was not to be despised 
as giving a comforting presence. Yet the 
weight of her loss lay heavily upon Mary, and 
she soon escaped from Luella to begin again the 
weary search. She was on her knees before a 
large rock when she heard a voice above her say : 
“ What you looking for ? A sparrow’s nest ? I 
know where there is one.” 

Mary looked up to see a barefooted boy peer- 
ing down at her. He had a pleasant face and 
appeared much as other boys, though she saw at 
once that he was a fisherman’s son, and not one 
of the summer visitors. “No, I’m not looking 
for a bird’s nest,” she said slowly ; “ I’ve lost 
something. Did — did — do you know if any one 
has found a piece of jewelry ? ” It flashed across 
her that she might do well to confide in the little 
lad. 


86 


Three Little Cousins 


“ Why, no, I don’t,” he replied, “ but I’ll help 
you look for it. I’d just as lief as not. What 
was it like ? ” 

Mary glanced around her. “ I’ll tell you,” she 
said, “ but I don’t want any one else to know. 
I am so afraid my aunt will be vexed. It is a 
brooch, a diamond brooch in the shape of a star, 
that I wore to the party the other night. I lost 
it coming home, I think.” 

“ It will be pretty hard to find, I’m afraid,” 
said the boy. “ Why don’t you tack up a notice 
in the post-oifice ? ” 

“ Oh, because I don’t want my aunt to know. 
I thought if I could only find it, I’d so much 
rather not tell.” 

“But, say, you don’t stand near so good a 
chance of finding it if nobody knows.” 

Mary pondered over this, her desire to find the 
pin battling with her desire to keep the loss a 
secret. “I’ll look a little longer,” she said at 
last, “ and then if I don’t find it I will have to 
tell.” 

“ I guess you do feel pretty bad about it,” said 
the boy. “Diamonds are valuable and if any- 
body found the pin it might be a temptation to 


Maiy and the Boy 87 

keep it, especially if it wasn’t known who it be- 
longed to. We’re pretty honest about here and 
I guess the Green Island people are, too, so, if 
it’s found, I guess you’ll get it again as soon as 
it’s known who lost it.” 

“ I’ve looked and looked all the way from here 
to the landing,” said Mary disconsolately, “ and 
I don’t believe it is here. I do wish I could get 
over to Green Island somehow.” 

“ Why, it’s easy enough to get there,” said the 
boy. “ Us boys go over often to pick berries, or 
sell lobsters to the hotel. I’ll row you over in 
my brother Parker’s boat ; I know he’ll let me 
have it.” 

“ Oh, how very kind ! I would be so relieved. 
It is most kind of you to offer to take me. Could 
we go now, before the others get back ? ” 

“ Why, I guess so. You come on with me and 
I’ll see. Park’s down to the fish-house, and I 
know he won’t be using the boat to-day. You 
know who I am, don’t you ? I live in that yel- 
low house just this side Hobbs’s store, and I’m 
Park Dixon’s brother Ellis. I’m going lobster- 
ing next year ; I’m big enough.” 

Mary looked him over. He was not very big, 


88 


Three Little Cousins 


she thought, but she did not know just what was 
the necessary size for one to reach in order to go 
lobstering, yet it seemed rather to place him in a 
position to be a safe guide, and she was glad he 
had told her. “ I’m sure,” she said following 
out her thought, “ that you’re quite big enough 
to take me.” 

“ Of course I am,” he said. “ I’ve sot over 
quite a lot of people to Green’s Island. I sot 
over a man last week.” 

Mary hesitated before she asked, “ If you 
please, what is sot over ? ” 

“ Why, row ’em over. If you don’t take the 
steamboat there ain’t no other way than to be 
sot over, you see.” 

“ Oh, I see. Thank you. Shall we go to the 
fish-house now ? ” 

“Why, yes, or you can wait here if you’d 
rather.” 

Upon considering, Mary concluded it would be 
more satisfactory to go, for perhaps Ellis might 
give her the slip, or, if the big brother objected, 
she might add her persuasions to Ellis’s and so 
clinch the matter. Yet while she stood waiting 
for Ellis to make his request for the boat, she 


Mary and the Boy 89 

had many compunctions of conscience. She had 
never before done so bold and desperate a thing. 
She had scarcely ever appeared on the street 
without her governess, and indeed it was the 
strict measures of this same governess which 
made the child timid about confessing the loss of 
the pin. As she thought about the trip to Green 
Island with a strange little boy to whom she had 
never even spoken before that day, it seemed a 
monstrous undertaking, and for a moment she 
quailed before the prospect. Yet what joy if she 
should return with the precious pin and be able 
to restore it without a word of censure from any 
one. This thought decided her to follow when 
Ellis beckoned to her. Big Parker Dixon smiled 
and nodded from where he was unloading shin- 
ing mackerel and big gaping cod, and Mary 
knew his consent had been given. 

“ It is a very smelly place,” she remarked as 
she picked her way along the wet fish-house 
floor. 

Ellis laughed. “That’s what you summer 
folks think ; we like it.” 

“ Fancy liking it,” said Mary, then feeling that 
perhaps that did not show a proper attitude 


90 


Three Little Cousins 


toward one so kind as Ellis, she hastened to say, 
“ No doubt it is a lovely smell, you know, and if 
I were an American perhaps I should prefer it, 
but I am English, you see.” 

“That’s what makes you talk so funny,” said 
Ellis bluntly. 

“ Oh, really, do I talk funny ? I can’t help it, 
can I, if I am English ? ” 

“Oh, some of the folks that live other places 
not so far away think we talk funny,” Ellis went 
on to say. 

“ Do they ? Then there is as much difference 
in liking ways of talking as in the kind of smells 
you like. Now, I never could bear the smell of 
onions cooking, and yet nurse says they smell so 
’earty and happetizing ; she drops her h’s, you 
know.” 

Ellis stared. He had never heard of dropping 
h’s, but he was too wise to say so. “ I’ll go get 
the Leona" he said by way of changing the sub- 
ject. “ That’s the name of my brother’s boat ; 
he named it after his wife. You’d better come 
on down to Cap’n Dave’s wharf ; it is easier get- 
ting aboard there.” 

Mary followed down a winding path to the 


91 


Mar^ and the Boy 

shore of the cove and waited on the pebbly sands 
till the boat was shoved up and then she waver- 
ingly stepped in, fearfully sat down where Ellis 
directed, and in a moment his sturdy young arms 
were pulling at the oars. The deed was done 
and Mary felt as if she had cast away every 
shred of home influence. What would Miss 
Sharp say to see her ? Polly wouldn’t hesitate to 
do such a thing, she reflected, and after all she 
was in America which was a perfectly free coun- 
try, so Molly and Polly were always telling her, 
then why not do as she chose ? So she settled 
herself more comfortably and really began to en- 
joy the expedition. 

It was but a short distance to Green Island, 
and the water of the dividing sound was too 
smooth to produce any uncomfortable qualms so 
that Mary felt only a pleasant excitement as she 
stepped ashore and was piloted by Ellis to the 
little hall where the fancy dress party had been 
given. All the way along they looked carefully 
to see if by chance anything could be discovered 
of the missing pin, but there was no sign of it. 
Ellis started inquiries, putting the question to 
each one he met: ‘‘You hain’t heerd of any- 


92 


Three Little Cousins 


body’3 findin’ a breastpin, hev ye ? I’ll ask at 
the post-office,” he told Mary. “ They won’t 
know who you are and if anybody finds it. I’ll 
leave word it’s to be returned to nae.” 

“ Oh, I’m sure you’re very kind,” said Mary 
gratefully. “ I can give a reward. Isn’t that 
what persons do ? ” 

“ I don’t know, I’m sure. Nobody about here 
wants any reward. I guess any of us is ready to 
return property when we know where it belongs.” 

“ Oh ! ” Mary felt properly rebuked. Keally 
Ellis was a very superior sort of person if he 
did murder the king’s English. It was quite 
evident that his morals were above question. 
She pattered by his side till they reached the 
hall. The door was open and the place unoccu- 
pied. It no longer seemed enchanted ground. 
The Japanese lanterns looked out of place in the 
glare of daylight, and the flowers still remaining, 
were faded and drooping. Instead of being 
bright and festive, it appeared bare and desolate 
to Mary. 

She and Ellis walked slowly around, looking in 
every corner, but their search was not rewarded, 
and they returned to the boat, stopping at the 


93 


Haiy and the Boy 

post-office on their way. The postmaster and 
his entire family were greatly interested in Ellis’s 
tale of the lost trinket. 

“ A diamond breaspin, did you say ? ” asked 
Jim Taylor. “ "Wal now, ain’t that a loss ? I’ll 
put up a notice right away. Marthy, you ain’t 
heerd of nobody’s findin’ a diamond breaspin, hev 
ye ? ” he questioned a girl who came in to mail a 
letter. “ Some of the P’int folks has lost one. 
If you hear of its bein’ found, tell ’em to fetch 
it here.” He carefully wrote out a notice which 
he pinned up alongside an advertisement of a 
boat for sale, a cottage to let, and a moonlight 
excursion. “ That’ll fetch it,” he said. “ If it’s 
been found on this island, you’ll get it. You tell 
’em over to the P’int we’re on the lookout. How 
is it you’re undertakin’ to look it up, Ellis ? 
Who’s the lady ? ” 

Ellis glanced furtively at Mary, squirming his 
bare toes on the dusty floor. “ Wal, I cal’lated 
I could find it,” he replied. “ I undertook it on 
my own hook, and I guess I’ll see it through. 
I’d like the fun of restorin’ it, if I can, Jim.” 

The postmaster laughed. “ You’re right cute, 
Ellis,” he said. “ Parker gone a-fishin’ yet ? ” 


94 


Three Little Cousins 


“No,” Ellis told him; “he’s goin’ oa Cap’n 
Abe Larkins’ boat. They’re loadin’ up now. ' 
They cal’late to get off in a day or two.” 

Jim Taylor nodded, and, having despatched the 
business with Ellis, he turned to wait upon a 
customer, for this was store and post-office as 
well. 

Mary was surprised to find that every one, 
young and old was called by the first name ; it 
seemed to her a queer custom. She would have 
said Mr. Taylor, but Ellis called even the old men 
Joshua and Abner and all that. She did not 
criticise, however, for she was very grateful to 
Ellis for not disclosing her secret. Keally he 
was a boy of very fine feelings, she decided, and 
she spoke her thought by saying: “You are 
very good to do all this for me, Ellis.” 

Ellis looked confused. He had not been 
brought up to receive praise. “Oh, it ain’t 
nothin’,” he said awkwardly. Then changing the 
subject suddenly, he exclaimed : “ There’s Luella 
Barnes ! ” 

“ "Where ? ” cried Mary in alarm. 

“Cornin’ out of the ice-cream saloon with 
Granville. I guess he fetched her over.” 


Maty and the Boy 95 

‘‘ I wonder if she’s come after me,” said Mary 
looking scared. 

“ Did she know you were cornin’ ? ” 

“No, but I said I would go over to the 
Whartons’. I meant to go when I told her, so 
maybe she thinks I am there and thought there 
was no need for her to stay in. She goes some- 
where every afternoon anyhow, so I fancy she 
hasn’t come for me, after all, though I’d rather 
not see her.” 

However this was not to be avoided, for Luella 
had caught sight of Mary and was about to bear 
down upon her when her attention was distracted 
by a friend who hailed her and in the meantime 
Mary slipped out of sight. “ That was Mary 
Keid as sure as shootin’,” said Luella to Granville. 

“ I guess not,” he replied. “ What would she be 
doing over here ? ” 

“I cal’lated she’d gone to Whartons’,’’ said 
Luella, pinching her under lip thoughtfully as she 
looked down the road. 

“Maybe she did go and they’ve fetched her 
over in their launch.” 

Luella “ cal’lated ” that was just the way of it, 
and gave herself no further uneasiness, so Mary 


Three Little Cousins 


96 

escaped by plunging down the bank and skirting 
the shore till she reached the spot where the boat 
lay. 

“ I’ll row you over to Jones’s Island, if you’d 
like to go. ’Tain’t but a little way. There’s lots 
of strawberries there,” the boy said. 

This was a temptation Mary considered. The 
afternoon was but half gone ; the evenings were 
long, and the sailing party would not return be- 
fore sunset. They enjoyed most of all the com- 
ing home when sea and sky were a glory of color 
and light. It would be a delightful way to pass 
the remainder of the afternoon, and to carry 
home a lot of berries for supper would be an ex- 
cuse to Luella for her long absence. “ What will 
we get the berries in ? ” she asked Ellis, when 
her thoughts had traveled thus far. 

“ I’ll run up to the store and get some of those 
little empty fruit boxes ; Jim’ll give ’em to me. 
I saw a pile of ’em lying outside. You wait 
here.” So Mary waited. If it should be dis- 
covered that she had gone off with Ellis in the 
Leona, she would at least have the berries as an 
evidence of what they had gone for. Mary was 
getting more and more crafty. 


97 


Maiy and the Boy 

The end of it all was that they did row over to 
Jones’s Island. A barren looking, uninhabited 
spot it seemed from a distance. Barren of trees 
it was, but when one once reached it there were 
great patches of strawberries, clumps of wild 
roses and bayberry bushes, pinky-white clover, 
deliciously sweet, tiny wild white violets and 
many other lovely things. Then, too, it was the 
haunt of birds which, undisturbed, had built their 
nests there year after year. 

It did not take long to pick as many berries as 
they could eat and as many as they wanted to 
carry away, and then when the sky was shining 
gold and pink and blue above and the water 
shining blue and pink and gold beneath, they 
started home, reaching there just as Luella, 
standing on the porch, was watching earnestly 
for the little girl’s return. Ellis had parted from 
his companion at the point where their roads 
separated. His supper hour was over long ago, 
though he did not say so, his parting words be- 
ing: “I’ll let you know first thing if I hear 
anything of the breastpin.” 

“ Thank you so much,” said Mary. “ I cannot 
tell you how much I have enjoyed the afternoon.” 


Three Little Cousins 


98 

“ I thought maybe you’d stayed at the Whar- 
tons’ for supper,” said Luella, as Mary came up. 
“ Land’s sake, where did you get all them ber- 
ries ? I know you didn’t get ’em about here. 
There, now, I said I seen you to Green’s. That’s 
just what I said. Did you have a good time ? 
Whartons’ is real good about their la’nch, ain’t 
they? Now there’s Eoops hardly ever takes 
anybody out but their own folks. I call that 
mean. Come on in and get your supper. Them 
berries is so fresh I guess they’ll keep till to- 
morrow, and you’ll want the others to have 
some. I cal’late you’ve eat your fill of ’em any- 
way.” 

Glad that Luella’s flow of talk did not demand 
answers, Mary followed her into the house and 
when the young woman drew up her chair 
sociably to eat supper with her, Mary did not 
feel any resentment, so happy was she that no 
explanations were expected. 



LOFC. 


f' \ ( 






\ 


s 


CHAPTER VI 
Discoveries 

But the end was not yet for Mary. To be 
sure her strawberries were much appreciated, 
and every one was good enough to say she had 
been missed, and that it was too bad she had de- 
cided to stay at home. “ Though after all you 
weren’t lonely,” said Molly, “ and I’m glad you 
went over to the Whartons’ ; they are such nice, 
friendly people.” 

“ I think they are, too,” said Polly. “ Luella 
told us they took you to Green Island on their 
launch.” 

“ I am delighted that you had that pleasure,” 
said Aunt Ada. 

“ And I am pleased that you were so industri- 
ous as to pick all those berries,” Uncle Dick put 
in his word. 

Poor Mary felt very uncomfortable. I am a 
wretchedly deceitful girl,” she told herself. 

Why can’t I tell them the truth ? But, oh, 
dear, it is harder to now than it was at first.” 


102 


Three Little Cousins 


So she summoned voice to s^y only, “Yes, I did 
have a real nice time. Green Island is almost as 
pretty as the Point, isn’t it ? ” 

“We don’t think it is near so pretty,” said 
Molly, loyally. 

“But it is lovely,” admitted Miss Ada. “I 
wish you could have seen Kocky Point, Mary ; 
that is the wildest spot imaginable. Perhaps 
after a while you will get over your fear of being 
seasick and can go with us on another trip there.” 

“ Oh, it is such a fine place to have supper,” 
put in Polly. “We had a dear little fireplace, 
and it was so still you could imagine you were 
hundreds of miles away from a house, and there 
was nothing to disturb us ” 

“ Except ants and grasshoppers and mosqui- 
toes,” interrupted Uncle Dick. 

“I’m sure there were very few of them,” pro- 
tested Molly. “Anyhow it was just fine, Mary, 
and you must be sure to go next time. We had 
the loveliest sail home through the sunset.” 

“ Through the sunset,” said Uncle Dick scorn- 
fully. “ One would suppose we were in a bal- 
loon.” 

“Well, but it was sunset on the water, too,” 


Discoveries 103 

persisted Molly. “ The sea was just as colorful 
as the sky.” 

“When anybody coins words like that Pm 
ready for bed,” said Uncle Dick. And Mary, 
feeling that the subject of the afternoon’s doings 
was exhausted, drew a breath of relief. 

The three cousins played together most ami- 
cably all the next morning. In Mary’s breast 
hope was high, for might not Ellis appear at any 
time with the pin ? She counted much on that 
notice in the Green Island post-oflS^ce. She was 
brighter than she had been for days so that 
Molly confided to Polly : “ She seems more like 
us.” 

“ I’m beginning to like her real well,” admitted 
Polly. “ She isn’t so stiff as she was at first.” 

“ I suppose her Englishism is wearing off,” re- 
turned Molly. 

But that afternoon when she returned from 
the post-office, whither she had gone for her 
Aunt Ada, she beckoned to Polly who was play- 
ing jacks with Mary. They had a set of jack- 
stones which they had collected themselves from 
the pebbles on the beach, and the place was much 
more interesting because of them. 


104 Three Little Cousins 

“ "What do you want ? ” asked Polly following 
Molly into the house. “Are there any letters 
for me ? ” 

“ No,” said Molly, “ but just wait a minute and 
I’ll tell you. I must take Aunt Ada her mail 
first.” Her manner was mysterious and Polly 
wondered what mighty secret she had to disclose. 

“ Let’s go down to the rocks, to the lion’s 
den,” proposed Molly when she came back into 
the room. “We’d better go around by the back 
way.” 

Polly looked surprised. “ Why ? What for ? ” 

“ I’ve something to tell you and I don’t want 
any one to hear. You will scarcely believe it, 
Polly, and I’m sure I don’t know what to do 
about it.” 

“Oh, dear, what can it be?” said Polly. “Is 
it anything about Luella? Is she going to 
leave ? ” 

“Oh, dear, no. It is about some one much 
nearer than Luella.” 

They avoided being seen from the front of the 
house till they were well away, and then they 
ran down to the rocks and settled themselves 
out of sight below one of the great ledges. 


Discoveries 


105 


“ Now tell,” said Polly, all curiosity. 

“You must promise not to breathe a word.” 

“ I promise on my sacred word and honor.” 

“ Well then ; it is about Mary.” 

“ Mary ! Oh, Molly ! ” 

“ Yes, what do you think ? She wasn’t at the 
Whartons’ at all yesterday afternoon.” 

Polly looked as astonished as Molly expected, 
though she said, after a pause : “ Well she never 

said she was.” 

“ She let us think so. She didn’t deny it.” 

“But did she go to Green Island? Now I 
think of it, all she said was that she thought it 
was a prettj’' place. She knew that because 
she saw it when she went over there to the 
party.” 

“ Yes, I know that, but it wasn’t at Green 
Island that she got the strawberries, Polly, and 
she didn’t go anywhere with the Whartons.” 

“ How do you know ? ” 

“ I saw Grace at the post-office. I said to her : 
‘ It was real nice of you all to take Mary out in 
the launch yesterday,’ and she looked so sur- 
prised when she said: ‘Why, we didn’t take 
Mary. We didn’t go out at all yesterday, for 


io6 Three Little Cousins 

Uncle Will had some of his friends up from town 
and they were using the launch all day.’ ” 

“ What did you say ? ” 

“ I didn’t know what to say. ‘ Did Mary tell 
you she was with us ? ’ Grace asked, and I had 
to crawl out by saying: ‘ No, Luella thought so.’ 
Then Grace said — now what do you think of 
this, Polly — she said : ‘ Why, I saw Mary 

going out with Ellis Dixon in his brother’s boat. 
I watched them rowing off. I am sure it was 
Mary. I couldn’t be mistaken for no one around 
here has a hat like hers.’ ” 

Polly was silent with amazement and Molly 
went on : “I had to say, ‘ Oh, very likely Aunt 
Ada knows all about it,’ and then I came away 
as fast as I could.” 

“ Why Molly Shelton ! ” exclaimed Polly find- 
ing her voice, “ do you suppose she sneaked off 
that way with a strange little boy when she says 
her mother is so particular that she doesn’t even 
let her go on the street alone ? I can’t believe 
it. I think Grace must have been mistaken.” 

“No, she wasn’t. I know that.” 

“ How do you know ? ” 

“I saw Parker Dixon and he said, ‘Did the 


Discoveries 107 

little girl get home all right ? She was pretty 
safe with El, but I didn’t know as your aunt 
mightn’t hev been oneasy, seeing they was just 
two children. You tell her she needn’t hev no 
fear of El ; he can handle a boat as good as I 
kin.’ ” Molly unconsciously imitated Parker’s 
manner of speaking. 

Then it is true ; of course it is,” decided 
Polly. “ Are you going to tell Aunt Ada ? ” 

“ I don’t know what to do. I feel as if I 
ought, and yet I feel sort of sorry for Mary. 
She is ’way off from all her people and we’ve 
been picking at her for being so particular and 
not doing this and not doing that, so maybe she 
thought she was doing no more than we would 
have done if we had been in her place.” 

“ I know, and maybe we would have done the 
same, but she needn’t have been deceitful,” re- 
turned Polly. “ She could have asked if she 
might go.” 

“ She didn’t have a chance, for we had gone 
sailing, you know.” 

“ Then she ought to have told the first thing, as 
soon as she saw Aunt Ada. No, she is a sneaky, 
horrid girl and I am not going to have anything 


io8 Three Little Cousins 

more to do with her, if she is my cousin. I 
was beginning to like her, too.” Polly spoke re- 
gretfully. 

“So was I,” agreed Molly. “But now the 
main thing is, shall we tell or shall we not ? I 
hate to be a tattle- tale.” 

“ Then don’t let’s tell, but don’t let’s be more 
than polite to her and she’ll see that something 
is wrong and maybe she will tell of her own ac- 
cord. I wish she’d go. I don’t like sneaky 
girls ; I’d rather they’d be out and out naughty.” 

“Why do you suppose she didn’t tell?” said 
Molly thoughtfully. “ She might have known 
that Aunt Ada wouldn’t punish her or even 
scold. She would only have said : ‘ I’d rather 
you’d always tell me, Mary, before you under- 
take such trips again.’ ” Again Molly imitated 
the person she quoted. “ It doesn’t seem to me 
she could be scared of Aunt Ada when she’s al- 
ways so gentle and kind.” 

“Well, I don’t care whether she was scared or 
not, she wasn’t honest, and I think anyhow it 
was very queer for her to sneak off with a boy 
she didn’t know.” 

“But I know him; I used to play with him 


Discoveries 


109 


when I was only four years old,’’ said Molly. 
“ He is a very nice boy. Aunt Ada says that he 
has been very well raised and that any mother 
could be proud of him. He is real bright, too : 
why, he can manage a sail boat as well as a man, 
and he’s always so ready and willing to do any- 
thing he can for any of us. He is very different 
from some of the others who just can’t bear the 
summer people.” 

‘‘Nevermind about him ; I suppose he is all 
right ; it is Mary I am bothered over.” 

“ Well, the only thing we can do is to wait 
and see if she will tell of her own accord ; 
maybe she hasn’t had a good chance yet to see 
Aunt Ada alone ; we are giving her the chance 
now, so we will wait and see what happens.” 

This Polly agreed was best, but they returned 
to the house to turn a cold shoulder to Mary, and 
to ignore her in every way they could without 
being directly rude. So directly opposite was 
this course of conduct from that of the morning, 
when her cousins had been all smiles and sweet- 
ness, that Mary’s fears again arose and she was 
so miserable that at bedtime when Molly went 
in to her English cousin’s room to get a bottle of 


no Three Little Cousins 

cold cream with which to anoint her sunburned 
face, she heard a soft little sob from Mary’s 
bed. 

Immediately her sympathies were aroused. 
Mary was far from home and mother. What if 
she had done wrong? She was alone among 
comparative strangers and who knew the exact 
truth of yesterday’s proceedings? She crept 
softly to Mary’s bedside. Her cousin’s face was 
buried in the pillow, and she was shaking with 
sobs. Molly leaned over her. “ Are you sick, 
Mary ? ” she whispered. “ Do you want me to 
call Aunt Ada ? ” 

“ No,” came feebly from Mary. 

“Is anything the matter? Please tell me. 
I’ll get into bed with you.” And suiting the 
action to the word she slipped in beside Mary, 
putting a sympathetic arm around her. “ What 
is it ? ” she repeated. 

Only sobs from Mary. 

“ Please tell,” persisted Molly. 

“ Oh, I can’t, I can’t,” said Mary, her tears 
flowing fast. 

“ I won’t tell a soul. I cross my heart I 
won’t.” 


Discoveries 


] 11 

Mary checked her sobs a little as she gave 
heed to the earnest promise. It was a relief to 
have Molly’s comforting presence near by there 
in the dark. But in a moment her tears gushed 
forth again. ‘‘ I want my mother, oh, I want 
my mother,” she wailed. 

Are you so homesick ? Is that it ? ” asked 
Molly with concern. “ Never mind, Mary, you’ll 
see your father soon, and — and — I’m sorry,” she 
whispered, I’m sorry we were horrid to you. 
Is that why you are homesick, because Polly and 
I weren’t nice to you ? ” 

Oh, n-no, it isn’t that,” replied Mary. “ I 
deserved it, Molly, but oh, you won’t tell, you 
won’t tell, will you ? ” 

“ Tell what ? ” 

Oh, Molly, I’ve lost Aunt Ada’s diamond pin, 
and I can’t find it. I’ve looked and looked and 
Ellis Dixon helped me, too. I thought if it had 
been found we would know by this time. That 
is why we went over to Green Island.” 

‘‘ Then you did go with Ellis.” 

“Yes, he came along while I was looking for 
the brooch, after you had all gone sailing, and he 
offered to take me to Green Island in his brother’s 


112 


Three Little Cousins 


boat, and when we got there the postmaster put 
up a notice in the post-office and we looked all 
over the hall everywhere, and all along the road 
and asked every one we met, but it was no use, 
and now I am afraid to tell Aunt Ada, and 
diamonds cost so much I could never buy another 
like it.” It was a relief to Mary to thus un- 
burden herself. 

“ I don’t seem to remember exactly about the 
pin,” said Molly. “ Aunt Ada is always getting 
some pretty new thing, but I don’t believe she 
showed me any diamond pin ; it must be quite 
new. I was so excited about my own costume 
that night, I forget about any ornaments you 
wore. Perhaps you could buy another one some 
time. I have some money, five dollars, and I’ll 
give it to you ; I’ll take it out of my bank when 
we go home ; that would help.” 

“Oh, Molly, how good you are!” Mary 
turned over to put her arm around her cousin. “ I 
have a pound, too, and that might be half enough, 
or nearly half, but I am afraid it would be a long 
time before we could get the rest.” 

“Well, I wouldn’t be scared of Aunt Ada, 
Mary,” Molly said. “ She is a dear, and she’ll be 


Discoveries 1 13 

very sorry, but she will know it was not your 
fault that you lost it.” 

“ Miss Sharp would say it was my carelessness, 
and she would be so very vexed.” 

“ Then she’s a mean old thing, and not a bit 
like dear Aunt Ada. Do tell her, Mary.” 

“ Oh, I can’t, I can’t,” persisted Mary, terror 
again seizing her, “ I am so afraid she will be 
vexed.” 

“ Then let me tell.” 

“ Oh, no, please. Wait a little longer. Per- 
haps the brooch can be found. Oh, I am so mis- 
erable ; Aunt Ada will think I am so careless and 
deceitful, and everything bad.” 

Molly now felt only a deep pity for the poor 
little sinner, and she began to kiss away the 
tears on Mary’s cheeks. “ Please don’t be miser- 
able,” she begged. “ I think maybe you ought 
to have told at first, but I see how you felt, and 
I’ll not be horrid to you any more, Mary. I’ll 
stand up for you straight along, and when you 
want Aunt Ada to know I will go with you to 
tell her.” 

Mary really began to feel comforted. “ I think 
you are a perfect duck, Molly,” she said. “Fancy 


114 


Three Little Cousins 


after all I have been doing, for you to be so kind. 
But please don’t tell Polly ; I know she doesn’t 
like me.” 

“ She did like you,” said Molly truthfully, 
“ until — until we heard that you had not been 
where Aunt Ada thought you were.” 

“ And she thinks I am deceitful ; so I have 
been, and I hate myself for it.” 

“ But Polly doesn’t know why you did it.” 

“ Then don’t tell her ; I’d rather anything than 
that.” 

“ Don’t you want Polly to like you ? ” 

“Yes, but I don’t want her to know I lost the 
brooch.” 

It was useless to try to rid poor Mary’s mind 
of the one idea, and at last Molly gave up trying, 
but she did not leave her forlorn little cousin, 
and Polly, in the next room while she wondered 
what could be keeping Molly, fell asleep in the 
midst of her wondering. 




CHAPTER VII 
In Elton Woods 

Polly was all curiosity the next morning. 
“ Why in the world didn’t you sleep with me ? ” 
she asked, sitting up in bed as Molly came in from 
the next room. 

“Because Mary needed me. She was in aw- 
ful trouble,” replied Molly soberly. 

“ What was it ? ” asked Polly eagerly. 

“ I can’t tell you.” 

“I think that’s real mean,” returned Polly in- 
dignantly. “ You’re just a turncoat, Molly Shel- 
ton ; first you’re friends with me, and then you’re 
thick as can be with Mary.” 

“ I’m not a turncoat,” retorted Molly, angry 
at being called names. “She’s as much my 
cousin as you are, and I reckon if you were way 
off from your mother and had a dreadful thing 
happen that you couldn’t talk to her about, you’d 
want some one to be a little sorry for you.” 


ii8 Three Little Cousins 

“ I think a dreadful thing is happening to me 
when you talk that way to me,” said Polly, 
melting into tears. “I just wish I had never 
come here, I do so, and I reckon I want my 
mother as much as Mary does hers. I am going 
to tell Uncle Dick how you act, so I am.” 

“ Oh, please don’t tell him 1 ” exclaimed Molly, 
alarmed. “We don’t want any one to know.” 

This but whetted Polly’s curiosity. “ I think 
you might tell me,” she pouted. 

“ I can’t. I promised I wouldn’t. You shall 
know as soon as Mary says I may tell.” 

“ Oh, I don’t care then. Keep your old secrets 
if you want to,” and Polly flounced out of bed 
and began vigorously to prepare for her bath. 
For the rest of the time before breakfast she did 
not speak a word to Molly who felt that she was 
indeed between two fires. She had promised not 
to tell Aunt Ada and if Polly were to tell Uncle 
Dick that morning that something was wrong, it 
might add to Mary’s troubles. She pondered the 
matter well while she was dressing, and by the 
time she had tied on her hair ribbon she had con- 
cluded to forestall Polly by telling her Uncle 
Dick something of what was the matter. She 


In Elton Woods 


119 


decided that she could do so without betraying 
Mary’s confidence. So she stepped down-stairs 
ahead of Polly and joined her Uncle Dick who 
was energetically walking up and down the 
porch. 

‘‘ Hello, Mollykins ! ” he cried. “ I’m getting 
up an appetite for breakfast. Come and join 
me.” 

As if you ever had to do anything to get up 
an appetite,” retorted Molly, slipping her hand 
under his arm. “ Oh, you take such long steps I 
have to take two to keep up with you.” 

“ So much the better, then you work twice as 
hard and can have twice as much. I peeped into 
the kitchen, but Luella looked as fierce as a sit- 
ting hen, and I didn’t dare to stay ; however, 
I know we are to have hot rolls for breakfast; I 
saw them.” 

The pocketbook kind, with the lovely brown 
crust all around ? Good ! I certainly want a 
double appetite for those. Uncle Dick, you 
oughtn’t to tell other people’s secrets, ought 
you ? ” 

‘‘No-o, not usually. Whose secret is burning 
in your breast ? ” 


120 


Three Little Cousins 


“ Why — promise not to tell a soul.” 

“Is it a murder?” 

“ No, of course not.” 

“ Is it grand larceny ? ” 

“ I don’t know what that is.” 

“ It is stealing something worth while, not like 
a loaf of bread nor a pin, nor anything of that 
kind. You know the copy-book says : ‘ It is a 
sin to steal a pin.’ ” 

“ Is it a sin to lose a pin ? ” 

“ Why, no, not unless it is a breastpin or a 
scarf-pin and you wilfully throw it to the fishes.” 

Molly drew a sigh of relief. “Suppose you 
lose something that belongs to some one else ; is 
that a sin ? ” 

“ Why no, it is a misfortune, not a crime. You 
don’t do it on purpose, you see, and in fact I 
think the loser generallj" feels worse than the 
one the thing belongs to. What have you lost ? 
Not my favorite scarf-pin, I hope. Have you 
been using it to pin rags around your doll ? ” 

“ Oh, Uncle Dick, of course I haven’t. I was 
only asking, just because I wanted to know.” 

“ As a seeker after ethical truths. It does you 
credit. Miss Shelton. You will probably join a 


In Elton Woods 


121 


college settlement when you are older, or at least 
write a paper on moral responsibilities.” 

“ Oh, Uncle Dick, you do use such silly long 
words.” 

“ I forget, when you tackle these abstruse sub- 
jects. I will come down from my lofty perch, 
Molly. What more can your wise uncle tell 
you ? ” 

“ If a person loses something very costly, some- 
thing that has been lent to her, ought she to pay 
it back ? ” 

“It is generally supposed to be the proper thing 
to replace it, but half the world doesn’t do it ; some- 
times because they can’t and sometimes because 
they don’t want to. Then, sometimes the one to 
whom the thing belonged, insists upon not hav- 
ing it replaced, and would feel very uncomfort- 
able if it were, though, from the standpoint of 
strict honesty, one should always make good any 
borrowed article whether lost, strayed or stolen.” 

“ Would you insist upon its not being made 
good ? ” 

“I shouldn’t wonder if I were that kind of 
gander.” 

“ Would Aunt Ada ? ” 


122 


Three Little Cousins 


“ I think she’s probably that kind of goose.” 

“ Oh, I am so glad she is a goose.” 

“ Glad who is a goose ? ” said Aunt Ada from 
the doorway. 

“We were talking about you,” said her brother 
laughing. “ Molly was calling you a goose.” 

“ Oh, Uncle Dick, you began it.” 

“ Did I ? Well, never mind. I smell those 
rolls, Molly, and I feel that I can demolish at 
least six. Come on, let’s get at them.” 

Although she had not really carried the sub- 
ject as far as she wanted, Molly felt that 
matters were not so bad for Mary as they 
had at first appeared, therefore, she took the 
first opportunity to reassure her on that point. 
Polly walked off to the Whartons’ immediately 
after breakfast, announcing with quite an air 
of wishing it generally known that she would 
probably spend the day with Grace in the 
woods, and that Luella had given her a lunch 
to take. 

Miss Ada smiled when this announcement was 
made. She realized that there had been some 
childish squabble and she never paid much at- 
tention to such. Mary saw at once that Polly 


In Elton Woods 


123 


was jealous of Molly’s attentions to her small 
self, and Molly felt so grieved at Polly’s deser- 
tion that she could hardly keep back the tears. 
It was very hard to do right in this world, she 
thought. If she were loyal to Mary she must 
lose Polly’s companionship, and she did love to 
be with Polly more than any one she had ever 
known. If she clung to Polly, she must give up 
Mary at a time when Mary most needed her. 

She looked after Polly skipping over the 
hummocks to Grace Wharton’s and wished she 
were going, too. It was so lovely in the woods. 
As if reading her thought, her Aunt Ada came 
up and put a hand on her shoulder. “ Suppose 
we all take our luncheon in the woods to-day,” 
she said. ‘‘It is too lovely to stay indoors a 
minute. Should you kitties like to go ? Dick is 
to be off sailing with Will Wharton and we three 
could have a nice quiet time. I’ll take some 
books ; you can have your dolls, and we’ll go to 
Willow Cove.” ^ 

“That’s where Polly is going,” said Molly 
quickly. 

Aunt Ada smiled. “Suppose we go to Elton 
woods instead, then.” 


124 


Three Little Cousins 


“ I like it better anyhow,” said Molly truth- 
fully. “I’d like nothing better than to spend 
the day there, you dearest auntie.” 

“ Then there we will go. Luella wants the 
day off, anyhow. She says she must go to town 
to have a tooth out, for ‘ the tooth aches some- 
thing awful.’ That is the third since we came. 
If she keeps on at this rate, she will not have a 
tooth left in her head by fall. It will be much 
easier to have a nice little lunch in the woods 
than to cook a dinner at home, don’t you think ? 
Suppose you and Mary run over to Mrs. Fowler’s 
and see if she can let us have a boiled lobster ; 
she generally is ready to put them on about this 
time of day, and you might stop at Skelton’s on 
your way back and get some of those good little 
ginger-snaps.” 

“ Aunt Ada is such a dear,” said Molly, as the 
two started off. “ I don’t believe she would 
ever, ever want you to get another pin, Mary, 
and if I were you I would tell her all about it 
to-day ; it will be such a good chance.” 

“ I’ll see about it,” said Mary evasively. 

There was no lovelier spot on the Point than 
Elton woods. Here the great trees grew to the 


In Elton Woods 125 

very edge of the cliffs, and the way to them was 
through paths bordered by ferns, wild roses, and 
woodland flowers. In some places the trees wore 
long gray beards of swaying moss and stood so 
close together that only scant rays of daylight 
crept under them ; in others they shot up high 
and straight above their carpet of pine-needles, 
which made a soft dry bed for those who lingered 
beneath them to gaze at the white-capped waves 
chasing each other in shore, or who, lying down, 
watched the fleecy clouds drifting across the 
sky. Near by was a pebbly beach where one 
could gather driftwood for a Are, or could pick 
up smooth water-washed stones to build walks 
and walls for tiny imaginary people. There was 
no end of the material the place afforded for 
amuseroent, and when they reached there, Molly 
eagerly fell to devising plays. 

Yet, alas ! She missed Polly’s fertile brain 
and imaginative suggestions. Polly was always 
able to discover fairy dells and gnome-frequented 
caves. It was she who invented the plays which 
were the most delightful. Mary was rather tire- 
some when it came to anything more than sober 
facts. She would pla}^ very nicely with the dolls. 


126 


Three Little Cousins 


but, when it came to make-believe creatures, she 
was sadly wanting, and the best response Molly 
could expect to get when she built a fairy dwell- 
ing was : “ Oh, I say, that is a proper little 
house, isn’t it ? ” or “ What a duck of a tree 
that is you are planting ; it is quite tiny, isn’t 
it?” 

“We always take some of these little bits of 
trees home with us,” Molly told her, “ and they 
live ever so long.” 

“ I wonder could I take one to England,” said 
Mary. 

“ Why, yes, I should think you could easily. 
We will get some the very last thing, and I am 
sure they’ll live quite a while.” 

“ It would be jolly nice to have one, wouldn’t 
it ? ” said Mary as she watched Molly patting the 
ground smooth around the one she had just 
planted in the fairy garden. “ I’d like to take 
some pebbles and some starfish, too. Keggie 
would be so pleased with them ; he would be 
quite vexed if I brought him none after telling 
him about them.” 

“ How often you say vexed, don’t you ? ” re- 
marked Molly. “We hardly ever say vexed.” 


In Elton Woods 


127 


What do you say ? ’’ 

‘‘ Oh, I don’t know ; we say mad and angry 
and provoked.” 

‘^But then I really mean vexed,” returned 
Mary after a moment’s thought. ‘‘ I don’t mean 
anything else,” and Molly had nothing more to 
say. 

It was after they had finished the lobster, the 
egg sandwiches, the buttered rolls and ginger- 
snaps and were delicately eating some wild straw- 
berries the children had gathered, that Molly 
made a sudden resolution to plunge Mary into a 
confession. 

‘‘ If you lent some one a diamond pin and she 
were to lose it would you be very — very vexed, 
Aunt Ada ? ” she asked, after a hasty glance at 
Mary. 

“ If I possessed a diamond pin I might be, but 
as I haven’t such a thing I couldn’t be vexed,” 
her aunt said. 

Mary jumped to her feet, startled out of her 
usual reserve. 

‘‘ But, Aunt Ada, you did have one ! ” 

“When, please? You must have dreamed it, 
Mary, dear.” 


128 


Three Little Cousins 


“But you did have. Oh, do you mean you 
know it is lost ? ” 

It was Miss Ada’s turn to look surprised. 
“ What do you mean, child ? ” she said knitting 
her brows. “ I never had a diamond pin to my 
knowledge. I always liked diamond rings, and 
I have two or three of those, but a pin I never 
possessed. What are you talking about ? ” 

Mary laced and unlaced her fingers nervously. 
“ I mean the one you lent me to wear the night 
we dressed up for the party at Green Island. 
Was it some other person’s, then? Oh, Aunt 
Ada, had some one lent it to you, for if they 
did ” — she faltered, “ I lost it coming home.” She 
sank down at Miss Ada’s feet on the mossy 
ground and buried her face in her aunt’s lap. 

Miss Ada put a kind hand on her head. “ And 
all this time you have been distressing yourself 
about it, you poor little kitten ? I ought to have 
told you, but you were so pleased in thinking it 
was real I thought I would let it go, and I have 
not thought of it since. Why, dear, it was of no 
value at all, a mere trumpery little rhinestone 
that cost only a couple of dollars.” 

Mary lifted her tearful eyes. “ Oh, I am so 


In Elton Woods 129 

relieved,” she said. “ IVe searched and searched 
for it ever since.” 

“ Yes, Aunt Ada, and she has been nearly sick 
over it,” put in Molly. ‘‘ She cried herself to 
sleep last night, and the reason she wouldn’t go 
sailing with us the other day was because she 
wanted to hunt for the pin.” 

You poor little darling, how can I make up 
to you for all this trouble ? ” said Miss Ada com- 
passionately. “ I am so sorry ; it is all my fault 
for not telling you in the first place.” 

On the strength of this there seemed no better 
time to confess her doings of the afternoon when 
she had gone to Green Island in the Leona^ and 
so Mary faltered out her tale, Molly once in a 
while coming in with excuses and comments so 
that in the end Miss Ada was not “ vexed ” at all 
but only said, “ If it had been any one but Ellis, 
I might feel inclined to warn you against going 
out in a row-boat, but he is a good, careful little 
lad, and if you will call it quits, Mary, I will, for 
I am conscience-stricken my own self ; but next 
time, dearie, ask me when you want to go on the 
water.” 

“ Oh, I will, I will,” sa^id Mary fervently. It 


130 Three Little Cousins 

was because I felt so dreadful at losing the 
brooch that I didn’t tell this time.” 

“It is a perfect shame,” said her Aunt Ada, 
cuddling her close. “ I hope now you will never 
find the old pin. I never want to see it again, 
for it would remind me of how my dear little 
niece suffered.” 

“ But I was bad. I deceived you.” Mary’s 
head went down again in her aunt’s lap. “ I was 
afraid to tell you,” she murmured. 

“Afraid of what, dear child? Not of your 
Aunt Ada ? ” 

“ I don’t know, oh, I don’t know why I was so 
scared. Miss Sharp is always so terribly severe 
when we are careless or try to get out of any 
thing we have done wrong.” 

“ But I’m not Miss Sharp, honey. Just forget 
all about this, if you love me. Of course you 
weren’t quite frank, but you were scared and it 
is as much my fault as yours ; mine and Miss 
Sharp’s,” she added half to herself. 

Yet they were destined to see the pin again, 
for that very afternoon, as they were coming 
home, whom should they meet but Polly and 
Grace. “ Guess what we’ve found ! ” cried Grace. 


In Elton Woods 


131 

See, Miss Ada, vve were looking for birds’ nests 
between your cottage and ours, and we found 
this caught in the grass just near where a spar- 
row had built. Polly says she thinks it is yours, 
that it looks like one you lent to Mary to wear to 
the party.” And she held out the little shining 
star in the palm of her hand. 

Miss Ada took it and gave a whimsical look at 
Mary. “ Yes, I believe it is mine,” she said. She 
tossed it back and forth from one hand to the 
other as she stood thinking. 

“ Ellis Dixon came along just after we found 
it, and he seemed awfully pleased,” Grace went 
on. 

Miss Ada laughed softly. “ Thank you very 
much, Grace, dear,” she said. “ It was good of 
you to bring it right to me.” Then changing the 
subject she asked, ‘‘How is your grandmother 
to-day ? ” 

“ Not so very well,” Grace replied. Then 
with sudden remembrance, “ I must go right back, 
for she worries if I am not in time for supper.” 
And she sped away. 

Miss Ada stood still smiling and looking from 
one of her nieces to the other. She continued to 


132 Three Little Cousins 

toss the little star from one hand to the other. 
“ I know what I am going to do with it,’’ she 
said looking at Mary. “ I’m going to give it to 
Luella for a wedding present.” 



CHAPTER VIII 
Ellis and the Baby 



CHAPTER VIII 
Ellis and the Baby 

That evening Polly was told the whole story 
and was properly contrite. She felt a little ag- 
grieved that she had not been one of the party to 
go to Elton woods, but she realized that it was 
her own fault, and offered at once to “ make up ” 
with Molly and Mary. So all was serene again, 
and the three children sat side by side all evening 
before the open fire, listening to a fascinating 
story Uncle Dick read aloud to them, and at last 
the three fell asleep all in a heap, Molly’s head in 
Polly’s lap, and the other two resting against 
Miss Ada’s knees. When they all stumbled up- 
stairs to bed, they were not too sleepy, however, 
to kiss one another good-night, and indeed were 
so bent upon showing no partiality that they 
all tumbled into the same bed, which happened 
to be Mary’s, where they went to sleep, hugging 
each other tight. 


136 Three Little Cousins 

The brightness of the restored pin seemed to 
be reflected upon them all after this. Uncle 
Dick was so tremendously funny at breakfast 
that Polly fell from her chair with laughter, and 
Luella giggled so that she held a plate of griddle 
cakes at such an angle that the whole pile slid off 
on the floor ; then every one laughed more than 
ever and Molly said that her jaws fairly ached 
and that she would have to spend the day with 
Cap’n Dave’s old white horse, for he had such a 
solemn face it made you want to sigh all the 
time. Of course this started the children off 
again and they left the table in high spirits. 

Yet before the day was over they had occasion 
to look serious without the society of old Bill 
horse, for about ten o’clock Ellis appeared, 
trouble puckering his pleasant face into worried 
lines. He had forgotten all about the finding of 
the pin in a more personal interest, for the cares 
of life had been suddenly thrust upon him. His 
brother Parker the day before had sailed away 
to the Grand Banks for sword-fishing. He had 
left his young wife and little bab}' in Ellis’s 
charge. Now Leona had fallen ill, “ and,” said 
Ellis, “ it’s up to me to take care of the baby.” 


ElUs and the Baby 137 

Is there no one else ? ” asked Miss Ada, as 
Ellis told his doleful tale. 

“ Ora Hart is taking care of Leona,” Ellis an- 
swered ; but she has as much as she can do to 
look after her own children. She’s Leona’s 
cousin and she’s awful good to come in at all. 
You see most everybody’s got folks of their own 
to see to, and they can’t spare much time, al- 
though they’re all willin’ enough to do what 
they can. I ain’t much used to babies myself. 
I got Nellie Brown to look after her while I 
come up here. I knew you’d wonder why I 
didn’t bring them clams I promised, and so I 
come to tell you why. I hope it won’t put you 
out. Miss Ada.” 

“We can have something else just as well,” 
she told him. “We are rather used to not get- 
ting just what we plan for,” she went on, smiling, 
for be it known one could never tell, at the 
Point, just how an order might turn out. If 
one expected lamb chops like as not “ Hen 
Koberts hadn’t fetched over no lamb,” or if 
mackerel had been ordered like as not the fish 
delivered would be cod, and the excuse would be 
that some one came along and carried off the 


Three Little Cousins 


138 

entire supply of mackerel before the last orders 
were filled ; therefore it was no new experience 
for Miss Ada to have to alter her bill of fare. 

“ I’m awful sorry about havin’ to stay home 
just now,” said Ellis disconsolately, “ for this is 
when I expected to get in some time with the 
boat. I promised two or three parties to take 
’em out, and now I’ll have to get some one else 
to take my place, but I’ll have to let ’em go 
shares. Park’s let me have the Leona whilst 
he’s away, but, if I could run her myself, I could 
make twice as much.” 

The three little girls listened attentively, and 
presently Polly twitched her Aunt Ada’s sleeve. 
“ Couldn’t we take care of the baby ? ” she 
whispered. 

Miss Ada looked down at her with a smile, but 
shook her head. 

“ Oh, why not ? ” said Polly in a louder 
whisper. “ I’d love to.” 

“ So would I,” came from Molly on the other 
side. 

Miss Ada beholding the eager faces said : 
“Wait a moment, Ellis. I want to talk over 
something with these girls of mine,” She led 


139 


Ellis and the Baby 

the way indoors, leaving Ellis on the porch. 
“Kow, lassies,^’ she said when they were all 
in the living-room, “ what is it you want to 
do?” 

“We want to take care of Ellis’s baby,” chanted 
the two, and Mary coming in as a third repeated 
the words. 

“ But do you realize what it would mean ? You 
would have to give up much of your playtime, 
and could not go off sailing or rowing or pic- 
nicking.” 

“We could go picnicking,” insisted Polly, “ be- 
cause we could take the baby with us.” 

“ Very well, we will leave out the picnic. I 
might get Luella to stay afternoons sometimes, 
but you know she goes home to help her mother, 
for Mrs. Barnes has more laundry work than she 
can do, and Luella has to help her when she can ; 
those were the only terms upon which she would 
consent to come to me ; so you see we can’t count 
on Luella.” 

“ It may not be for very long,” said Polly, 
hopefully. “ Leona may soon get well.” 

“ If it is typhoid, as they suspect, she is likely 
to be ill a long time.” 


140 Three Little Cousins 

“Well, I don’t care; I’ll give up my after- 
noons,” decided Polly. 

“ And I’ll give up my mornings,” said Molly, 
not to be outdone. “ And then the baby does 
sleep some, so we can play while she is asleep. 
Oh, Polly, we could have lovely times playing 
with something alive like that.” 

“Wouldn’t it be jolly to have a real live baby 
for a doll,” put in Mary. 

“ I see you are not to be put off,” said Miss 
Ada, laughing, “ so I will allow you to undertake 
the charge for a week, and at the end of that 
time if I think it is too much for you, I shall 
have to insist that you give it up.” 

“ Oh, Ave’ll never think it is too much,” de- 
clared Polly with conviction, and the others 
echoed her. 

So they all trooped out to Ellis. “We have 
the loveliest plan,” Molly began eagerly. 

“ You can have all your time,” put in Polly. 

“ I am so very pleased to be able to do some- 
thing for you when you were so kind to me,” 
said Mary earnestly. 

Ellis looked bewildered. 

“The girls propose to take care of your 


Ellis and the Baby 141 

brother’s little baby for a week, Ellis,” Miss Ada 
explained. 

“ Oh, I can’t let ’em do that,” said Ellis bash- 
fully. 

•^Oh, but we are just wild to,” Polly assured 
him. 

Yes, we truly are,” Molly insisted. “We 
adore babies. When can you bring her over, 
Ellis ? Shall we keep her day and night, Aunt 
Ada, and may she sleep with me ? ” 

“ Oh, Ora’s sister says she can take her at 
night,” Ellis hastened to say. “ She can’t leave 
home very well, and she is too busy during the 
day to look out for her, for she has a lot of chil- 
dren, but none of them are little small babies ; 
the youngest is three, and she says she doesn’t 
mind having the baby at night.” 

“ Then we’ll arrange for the day only,” said 
Miss Ada with decision ; “ that is when she would 
require your time, Ellis, and we are glad to help 
you out so you can take out the boat when you 
have the opportunity.” 

“I’m sure I’m much obliged,” said Ellis awk- 
wardl3^ Like most of the “ Pointers ” he was 
unused to showing his gratitude. To bis mind 


142 


Three Little Cousins 


any display of appreciation was poor-spirited. 
He was too proud to let any one see that he 
felt under obligations and to say even as much as 
he did was an effort. Nevertheless, he trotted 
off feeling a great weight removed, and in half 
an hour was back again with the little four- 
months-old baby. 

For that day, at least, the small Miss Myrtle 
Dixon was overwhelmed with attentions. Polly 
sat by when she slept, ready to pounce upon her 
and take her up at the slightest movement. 
Molly was on hand to urge a bottle of milk upon 
her if she so much as whimpered. Mary dangled 
be-ribboned trinkets before her the minute she 
opened her eyes, and they were all in danger of 
hurting her with overkindness. 

The second day she was less of a novelty, 
though sufficiently entertaining for each of her 
three nurses to clamor for her. 

“ She is too dear for anything,” said Molly 
ecstatically. “ See her laugh, Mary, and flutter 
her little hands. She is to be my baby this 
morning. Let’s go around the side of the house, 
where it is shady, and play. You can have the 
place under the porch for your house, Polly, and 



For That Day, At Least, The Small Miss Myrtle Dixon Was 
Overwhelmed With Attention. 



Ellis and the Baby 143 

Mary can have the vvood-shed. I’ll take the 
cellar.” 

“ Oh, but that will be too cold and damp for 
the baby,” said Mary. “ You take the wood-shed 
and I’ll take the cellar,” she added generously. 

Molly agreed and presently baby was estab- 
lished in a crib made of the clothes-basket where 
she lay contentedly sucking her thumb. Mary, 
hugely enjoying herself, kept house in the cellar. 
She sat at the door in a rocking-chair which she 
rocked back and forth with a blissful expression 
on her face. If there was any American comfort 
which Mary did appreciate it was a rocking-chair. 
She had never seen one till she came to the 
United States, neither had she ever before made 
the acquaintance of chewing-gum. This was a 
luxury seldom allowed the little girls. “ It is a 
disgusting habit,” Miss Ada declared, “and I 
don’t want you children to acquire it. Your 
mother, Mary, would be shocked if she saw you 
use it.” But once in a while Uncle Dick slyly 
furnished each with a package and Miss Ada 
allowed them to have it, though protesting all 
the time to her brother. This special morning 
Uncle Dick had bidden a package under each of 


144 


Three Little Cousins 


their breakfast plates, and it is needless to say 
that three pairs of jaws were working vigorously 
as they played house. 

“I’m [going to ask Aunt Ada if we may go 
barefoot,” announced Molly ; “ it is plenty warm 
enough to day.” 

Mary jumped up, tipping over her rocking- 
chair as she did so. “ Oh, does she allow you to 
do that ? ” she cried. “ I’ve always secretl}'^ 
longed to, but Miss Sharp is perfectly horrified 
when we ask her.” 

The other two looked at each other with a 
little smile, for it was not such a great while be- 
fore this that Mary herself had been horrified at 
the suggestion. 

“ Aunt Ada doesn’t care, if it is warm enough,” 
Molly informed her. “ I always go barefoot up 
here, if I feel like it and it isn’t too cold. I’ll 
go ask her now. Watch the baby for me, 
girls.” 

They promised to be faithful nurses while 
Molly went on her errand. She was gone some 
time and when she returned she was carefully 
bearing a plate of fresh doughnuts. “ Which 
would you rather have, Polly,” she cried, “ dough- 


Ellis and the Baby 145 

nuts or chewing-gum ? you can’t have both, Aunt 
Ada says.” 

“ Doughnuts,” decided Polly without hesitation 
taking the chewing-gum from her mouth and 
slapping it securely against a stone in the founda- 
tion of the porch. “ Don’t they look good ? So 
brown and sugary. I do think Luella makes the 
best doughnuts,” and she helped herself to a 
specially fat, appetizing one. 

“ Which do you choose, Mary ? ” asked Molly. 

Mary continued her rocking and chewing. 
“ I’ll keep the gum, thank you.” 

Molly laughed. “ That is what Aunt Ada said 
you would do. And girls, we may take off our 
shoes and stockings. How’s the baby, Polly ? ” 

“ Sound asleep.” 

“ Good ! Then I reckon we can leave her for 
a while. I do want to get my bare toes on the 
grass, don’t you ? Come on, Polly, and let’s hunt 
for snakes.” 

“ Snakes ! ” Mary jumped to her feet in 
horror. “ Are there snakes here ? Fancy ! ” 
She gathered her skirts about her and looked 
ready to fly. 

“ Why, yes. Do you mind them ? ” returned 


Three Little Cousins 


146 

Molly calmly. “ Polly and I love the little green 
grass snakes ; they are perfectly harmless and are 
so pretty.” 

“ Pretty ? I could never imagine anything 
pretty about a snake,” replied Mary, recoiling. 
“ My word ! Molly, just fancy your talking so 
of a horrid snake.” 

Molly laughed at her horror. “They aren’t 
poisonous, Mary.” 

“ But the very idea of them is so loathsome.” 

“ It isn’t unless you make it so,” pot in Polly. 
“ I like all kinds of little creatures so long as 
they don’t bite or sting, and some of those, like 
bees, for example, I like, though I don’t want 
them to get too near me. Of course when it 
comes to rattlesnakes or copperheads, or such, 
I am afraid of them, but these little grass snakes 
are different.” 

But Mary could not be persuaded to give up 
her prejudices and would none of the snakes, so 
they decided to gather buttercups, and wandered 
off among the soft grasses on the hilltop. Bui 
it was only when they saw Luella wildly waving 
the dish-cloth to attract their attention that they 
remembered the baby. Then they started 


H7 


Ellis and the Baby 

toward the cottage post-haste, arriving there to 
find Miss Ada walking the floor with the baby 
and trying to still its cries. 

“ What is the matter with her ? ” cried Molly 
rushing in. ‘‘We thought she was sound 
asleep.” 

“ Babies don’t sleep forever,” remarked Luella 
sarcastically. “ Here, Miss Ada, I’m used to ’em. 
Let me see if there’s a pin stickin’ her anywhere ; 
there’s no knowin’ what foolin’ with her clothes 
these children have been doin’.” 

The children dared not protest against this 
charge while Miss Ada said : “ Oh, I have looked 
and she seems all right,” but she relinquished the 
baby into Luella’s capable hands. 

That young woman turned the screaming 
infant over, felt for an offending pin, turned her 
back again, and finally laid her across her knees 
and began to pat her on the back. “ I guess 
she’s got colic,” she decided. “ Molly, you just 
step up to Mis’ Chris Fisher’s and see if she’s 
got a handful of catnip. She mostly does keep 
it, seein’ she always has got a baby on hand. 
There, there, there,” she tried to soothe the child 
on her knees. “ Miss Ada, you’ll either have to 


148 Three Little Cousins 

take her or see to them pies in the oven ; I can’t 
do both.” 

“ Oh, I’ll see to the pies,” responded Miss Ada 
escaping to the kitchen. 

Molly was already on her way to Mrs. Chris 
Fisher’s. Polly vainly tried to attract the baby’s 
attention by every means within her power. 
Mary stood by suggesting alternately mustard 
poultices and ginger tea, which suggestions 
Lnella contemptuously put aside. 

“ I don’t see what’s the matter with her unless 
it is colic,” she remarked. “ She may be subject 
to it ; I ain’t heard say. I’ll ask Ora next time I 
go out. When was she fed last ? ” 

“Why, I don’t know.” The two little girls 
looked at each other. “Did you give her the 
bottle, Mary ? ” asked Polly. 

“ No,” was the reply. 

“ Maybe Molly did. I reckon it was Molly ; 
she was playing she was mother this morning, 
you know.” Luella said nothing but continued 
the rocking movement of her knees till Molly 
came in, breathless, with the bunch of dried 
catnip. 

“ I suppose she’s been fed regular,” said Luella 


Ellis and the Baby 149 

addressing Molly, “ and you’ve took care to give 
her the milk warm.” 

“ Oh, dear ! ” Molly stood still. “ I forgot she 
had to be fed oftener than we are, and oh, Luella, 
I am afraid the last milk she took wasn’t real 
warm.” 

“ Then no wonder she’s yellin’ like mad,” said 
Luella disgustedly. “ You’re a nice set to take 
care of a young un. Here, some of you hold her 
whilst I get her milk and give it to her right. 
If she ain’t got colic from cold milk she’s 
starvin’.” 

Molly meekly took charge of the screaming 
child who did not cease its crying till Luella, 
returning with the bottle of milk, thrust the rub- 
ber nipple into its mouth ; then suddenly all was 
quiet. “Just what I thought; half starved,” 
said Luella. “ It looks as if I’d got to see to the 
youngster, if she stays here. Miss Ada’s not much 
better than the rest of you. What does she 
know about babies ? I guess Ellis can beat the 
best of you, after all, when it comes to ’tendin’ 
babies.” 

The little girls felt properly abashed. Only 
the second day of the baby’s stay and she had 


150 Three Little Cousins 

gone hungry for an hour, while the day before 
she had been overfed. It did not look as if their 
benevolent plan worked very well, and indeed, 
by the end of the week. Miss Ada decided that 
Miss Myrtle must return to her own. This 
was made easier by her grandmother’s arrival 
upon the scene, and there were helpers enough to 
relieve Ellis for at least half the day. However 
the interest in Parker Dixon’s family did not end 
at once. 





4 



CHAPTER IX 

New Burdens for Ellis 

The three cousins were having a tea on the 
rooks with their friend Grace Wharton. Luella 
had baked them some tiny biscuits and some wee 
ginger-snaps ; they had made the fudge them- 
selves, and as for the tea, the amount Miss Ada 
allowed them would not affect the nerves of any 
one of the four. There was plenty of hot water 
in the little brass tea-kettle, and an unlimited 
supply of milk and sugar. A big flat rock served 
as a table, and smaller ones gave them excellent 
seats. 

They had just finished eating the last of the 
cakes and were nibbling the fudge when Polly, 
perched highest on the rocks, exclaimed : 
“ There’s Granville talking to Luella ! I wonder 
what he is doing up here this time of day. 
They look real excited. There, Luella is going 
into the house. Now Aunt Ada has come out 
with her and they are all talking together. I 


154 Three Little Cousins 

believe I’ll go up and see what it is all about. 
Don’t eat up all the fudge.” 

“Hurry back then,” Molly called after her. 
“ Let’s hide it, girls, and pretend when she comes 
back that we’ve eaten it all up.” 

“ I’ll hide it,” said Grace. She ran down a lit- 
tle way below them and poked the remaining 
pieces of fudge into a crevice in the rock, and 
then returned to await Polly’s return, who in a 
few minutes came running back. “Oh,” she 
said, “ I have something to tell you. Our poor 
little baby hasn’t any father. He has been 
drowned.” 

“ Oh, how dreadful ! ” Three pairs of startled 
eyes showed how this news affected the little 
tea-drinkers. 

“ Do tell us about it,” said Molly setting down 
the cup from which she was draining the last 
sugary drop. 

“ I didn’t hear all about it,” Polly told them, 
“ but I know he tried to save one of his ship- 
mates and couldn’t, and they were both drowned. 
Luella is going down to stay with Ora’s children 
this afternoon. They haven’t told Leona yet, 
and poor Ellis is perfectly distracted, Granville 


»55 


New Burdens for Ellis 

says. Isn’t it sad, when Leona has been so ill 
and now this dreadful thing has happened ? ” 

“I feel so very sorry for Ellis,” remarked 
Mary. 

“ So do I,” said Polly, “ for the baby isn’t 
big enough to know, and maybe Leona can get 
another husband, but Ellis can’t get another 
brother.” 

They all agreed that this was a plain fact and 
sat quite solemnly looking off at the blue sea 
which had so cruelly swallowed up Parker. 

At last Polly gave a long sigh, and she broke 
the silence by exclaiming, “There, you mean 
piggies, you ate up all the fudge ! ” 

“You were gone so long,” said Molly giving 
Grace a nudge. 

“ I don’t care ; you ought to have saved an 
extra piece for my bringing you such exciting 
news.” 

“ But it was such sad news,” said Grace turn- 
ing away her head so Polly could not see her 
smile. 

“ If it is sad you needn’t laugh about it,” said 
Polly severely. “ I believe you hid it ! ” she ex- 
claimed suddenly. 


156 Three Little Cousins 

“If you think so, look for it,” said Molly. 
And Polly immediately set to work to search 
each one of the party, but could not find a 
crumb of fudge. 

Then she seized Molly, playfully shaking her. 
“ Tell me truly, did you eat it all ? ” 

Amid her struggles to free herself, Molly con- 
fessed that they had not. “ But, I can’t find it,” 
Polly persisted. “ Do you know where it is, 
Molly?” 

“ No.” 

“ Oh, Molly ! ” This from Grace. 

“I don’t exactly know. You hid it,” said 
Molly. 

“ Then Grace Wharton, tell me.” Polly loosed 
her hold upon Molly, and turned to Grace. 

“ No, the first that finds it can divide it and 
can have an extra piece.” 

In vain the three searched up and down the 
cliff. “ Grace said she hid it between two 
rocks,” announced Molly at last. 

“ Then she’s just got to find it,” said Polly. 
“ Grace ! Grace ! ” she called. And Grace re- 
sponded by appearing on the rocks above them. 

“ You’ll have to show us where you hid it.” 


New Burdens for Ellis 157 

On Grace’s face was an expression of concern 
as she came swiftly clambering down to them. 
“Why, girls,” she cried as she reached the 
spot where they stood, “I’m awfully afraid 

that Oh, dear, why didn’t I remember 

about the tide; I’m afraid they’re spoiled.” 
She ran to a rock a little lower down. 

“Look out or you’ll get splashed,” warned 
Molly. “ There’s a big wave coming in.” 

Grace sprang back to avoid the swash of water 
which poured over the rock at her feet ; then 
she exclaimed ruefully : “ If I wasn’t sure before, 
I am now ! The fudge is just under that rock, 
between those two small ones.” 

“Then it’s simply all salty, if it isn’t gone 
entirely,” declared Molly. True enough when 
they examined the spot, during a lull in the in- 
pour of waves, they discovered only a couple of 
water-soaked bits of fudge, fast melting away. 

“Our joke didn’t turn out very well,” said 
Molly turning to Polly. 

“ Oh, never mind,” returned Polly cheerfully, 
“it would all be eaten up and forgotten anyhow 
if I had not gone up to the house, so what’s the 
difference ? ” 


158 Three Little Cousins 

“I’ll make some very soon,” Grace assured 
her. “ I’ll do it to-night.” 

“Oh, no, don’t mind,” said Polly. “"We’ve 
had enough for to-day. See, there is Aunt Ada 
coming down to us. She will tell us more about 
the Dixons.” 

Miss Ada came with a scheme to unfold. “ I’m 
going over to Green Island,” she told them, 
“ and if I am not back in time for supper you 
children hunt around and get something for 
yourselves. Luella has gone to staj^^ with Ora’s 
family so Ora can be with Leona. She will need 
all the comfort she can get. We must try to 
help the poor girl, for her illness and all this 
will take everything they may have saved. 
Ellis is pitifully sad, but he says he means to 
support the family. Poor little chap, as if he 
could ! I am going to try to arrange a bazaar or 
cake sale or something to help them ; you chil- 
dren may help if you like.” 

“ Oh, may we ? How lovely ! ” cried Molly. 

“ I’ve helped at fairs,” said Grace. 

“ And once I helped my aunt at a tea she gave 
the village children,” said Mary. 

“ I’ll do everything I can, though I never saw 


New Burdens for Ellis 159 

a fair or a bazaar,” said Folly. “ Tell us more 
about it, Aunt Ada.” 

“ Tell her all you know, girls,” said Aunt Ada. 
“ I must go now. You will not be afraid to stay 
alone till I get back, will you ? ” 

Her nieces assured her that they would not, 
and she left them in quite a state of excitement, 
for, sad as the occasion was, they could not help 
anticipating the pleasure of the bazaar. ‘‘We 
will have such a lovely time getting ready for 
the sale,” said Molly. “We have had them here 
before, and they are lots of fun. I know what 
I am going to do. I’m going to the wood-pile 
and strip off a whole lot of birch bark to make 
things of.” 

“ What kind of things ? ” asked Mary. 

“ Oh, all sorts of things ; napkin rings and pic- 
ture frames and boxes.” 

“ Oh ! ” Mary was interested. She had never 
seen such things except those that the Indian ped- 
dlers brought around to the cottages, and never 
did one appear over the brow of the hill, bowed 
under the burden of his baskets, that she did not 
run for her purse, and by now had quite an array 
of gifts for her English friends. To add to these 


i6o Three Little Cousins 

a supply of birch-bark souvenirs which she could 
make herself was a prospect truly delightful. 
“ It is very convenient that a quarter is about 
the same as a shilling,” she remarked, “ but I can 
never remember that a penny is two cents ; it 
seems as if an American penny should be the 
same as an English one.” 

I should think you would be glad it isn’t,” 
said Polly, for when you are counting at the 
rate of our pennies you have twice as many as 
you would have English ones.” 

“ Well, I don’t know,” said Mary thoughtfully. 
“ I had a whole pound when I reached here, and 
Uncle Dick had it changed into American mone3^ 
I thought I had such a number of pennies and I 
found they were only cents, but then one can 
buy a great many things here for a cent that one 
would have to pay a penny for at home, especially 
sweets.” 

That evening she sat fingering her little hoard 
while Molly was busy preparing her birch bark. 
‘‘ I think I can do very nicely,” announced Mary. 

I shall have a dollar to spend at the bazaar. 
Oh, is that the way you do the napkin rings, 
Molly ? Could I do some, do you think ? ” 


New Burdens for Ellis i6i 

Of course you could,” said Molly, encourag- 
ingly. 

I know what I am going to do,” said Polly, 
jumping up ; “ I’m going to get some tiny pine 
trees to put into little birch-bark boxes; they 
will look so pretty. Come on, Molly, it isn’t 
dark j^et.” 

‘‘ Oh, but we mustn’t get them now,” replied 
Molly. ‘‘We must wait till the very last thing, 
so they will look as fresh as possible.” 

Polly stopped short. In her impetuous way she 
had forgotten this important point. “ Oh, I 
never thought of that,” she said. “ Well, any- 
how, we can make the boxes.” 

“ I don’t believe we can do those either,” re- 
turned Molly, further dampening Polly’s ardor. 
“We ought to have some small wooden boxes to 
tack or glue the bark on. We can try some little 
baskets with handles, and we can fill those with 
fudge or some kind of home-made candy.” 

“ Oh, very well, we’ll begin on those, then.” 
And Polly sat down contentedly with the others 
to try her ingenuity. They became so absorbed 
in their work that they forgot all about supper, 
the more so that their afternoon tea had taken 


i 62 


Three Little Cousins 


the edge from their appetites, and it was not till 
the maid from the Whartons came over for 
Grace, saying that her grandmother was wonder- 
ing how much longer they must save her supper 
for her that they realized how late it was. Then 
Grace having scurried home, the three cousins 
searched about to see what was in the larder for 
themselves. They found plenty of bread and 
butter, ginger-snaps and stewed gooseberries, 
but not much else, so they sat down contentedly 
to this fare while the sunset turned from rose to 
purple and then to gray. It was late enough in 
the season for the evenings to become chilly 
after sundown, and Polly proposed that they 
should have an open fire. “We can sit around and 
tell stories,” she said, “and we can go on with 
our work at the same time, so the time will pass 
very quickly till Aunt Ada comes back.” 

“I’ll love that,” declared Molly. “I think 
telling stories is the very nicest way of passing 
away the time.” 

“ So do I,” said Mary, “ when I don’t have to 
tell the stories. I never know anything interest- 
ing.” 

“ Oh, but you do,” protested Polly. “We like 


New Bardens for Ellis 163 

to hear about England, of how you have to take 
off your shoes and put on slippers in the school- 
room, of how you can’t walk out without your 
governess or some one older and all about not 
having sweet potatoes nor corn, and of how 
tomatoes are grown under glass and all those 
ways that are so different from ours.” 

But that isn’t a real tale,” objected Mary. 

“ Never mind, we like to hear it,” said Molly. 
“ What are you doing, Polly ? ” 

“ I am building the fire ; there must be a whole 
lot of light stuff to set it going.” 

“That looks like a good deal,” said Molly 
doubtfully regarding the pile of bark, shaving 
and light wood that Polly was stowing in the 
fireplace. 

“ It will kindle all the quicker,” returned Polly 
in a satisfied voice, touching the kindling with a 
lighted match. In an instant not only was the 
light stuff all ablaze, but the flames, leaping out, 
caught the white apron which Polly had put on, 
half in sport, when they were getting their sup- 
per. It was one of her Aunt Ada’s and reached 
to Polly’s ankles, so that she seemed enveloped 
in flames. She shrieked, but stood still. Quick 


Three Little Cousins 


164 

as a flash Mary caught up the pitcher of water 
standing on the table and dashed it over her 
cousin, then she grabbed her and threw her on 
the floor, snatching up the rug from the floor be- 
fore doing so, thus protecting herself, and at the 
same time providing a means of putting out the 
fire which she did by rolling Polly in the rug. 

Molly was perfectly helpless with fright and all 
she could do was to wring her hands and cry, “ Oh, 
what shall we do ? What shall we do ? Oh, 
Polly, Polly ! ” 

Just as the fire was all crushed out, the door 
opened and in walked their Uncle Dick. Molly 
rushed to him. Throwing herself in his arms, 
she cried : “ Oh, Polly is burning up ! Save 

her ! Save her ! ” 

“ What is all this ? ” said Dick springing for- 
ward. 

Mary arose from where she was kneeling over 
Polly. “ I think it is all out now,” she said. 

Polly unwound herself from her mummy-like 
case. “ Are you badly hurt ? ” her uncle asked 
anxiously. 

“No,” she said with a sobbing breath; “only 
my legs hurt me.” 


New Burdens for Ellis 165 

How did it all happen ? ” said her uncle, pick- 
ing her up and setting her in a chair. 

“We were kindling the fire,” explained Mary, 
“ and Polly’s apron caught.” 

“ And Mary saved her life,” sobbed Molly com- 
pletely unnerved. “ She threw water on her, 
and rolled her in the rug.” 

“ That is what my governess said we should do 
in such cases,” said Mary quietly, though her face 
was twitching. “ I never loved Miss Sharp be- 
fore,” she added with a little laugh. 

“ You certainly did save Polly’s life,” said her 
uncle as he examined Polly’s clothing. “ For- 
tunately she has on a woolen frock and has been 
only slightly scorched about the legs. The fire 
evidently did not reach her bare flesh. You 
didn’t breathe the flames, did you, Polly, for I 
see the fire did not go above your waist.” 

“ I am sure I didn’t breathe any flames,” Polly 
assured him. “ Mary was so quick. She saw at 
once that I had caught fire and she threw the 
water over me right away, but oh, Uncle Dick, I 
may not be burned badly, but it does hurt.” 
And she buried her face on her uncle’s shoulder 
to hide her tears. 


i66 


Three Little Cousins 


“ Poor little girl, I know it hurts,” he said. 
“ Get some salad oil, Molly, and some baking 
soda ; then see if you can find an old handker- 
chief or two and some raw cotton. We must try 
to ease this wounded soldier. How did you 
children happen to be here alone ? ” 

Mary explained, her uncle listening attentively. 
“ I wish I had known it,” he said ; “ I would not 
have stayed to supper with the boys. We came 
in on the Gawthrops’ yacht about supper-time 
and they persuaded me to stay, but somehow I 
felt that I ought to get home soon after. You 
children must not be left alone again.” 

“I’ll never try to kindle another fire,” said 
Polly woefully. “ Molly said I was putting on 
too much light stuff and it just leaped out like a 
tiger to bite me.” 

Molly had returned with the oil and other 
things by this time, and soon Polly was made as 
comfortable as her hurts would allow, but it was 
some days before she could run about, and if 
there was anything lacking in her affection for 
her English cousin before this, now it was that she 
could not bear her out of sight, for Mary, by her 


New Burdens for Ellis 167 

coolness and capable help, had proved herself a 
heroine to be loved and admired. 

Although this scare was the important topic 
with the family for some time, the scheme for 
helping the distressed Dixon family went for- 
ward rapidly and the next week when Polly’s 
burns gave her no more uneasiness, the bazaar 
was held. There was no prettier table the length 
of the room than that at which Miss Ada pre- 
sided, assisted by her three little nieces. Their 
Uncle Dick had cleverly helped them with the 
decorations as well as with their birch bark boxes 
in which were planted the little pine trees. 
These were so much admired that not one was 
left after the sale, and Mary had to bespeak some 
to be made for her to carry home. Some little 
packages of fudge and home-made candies Avent 
off rapidly, and of Luella’s famous doughnuts not 
one was left. 

It was at the end of the sale when the biggest, 
finest cake was yet waiting a buyer that Polly 
had a whispered talk with her Uncle Dick and 
afterward stood in front of the cake table hold- 
ing fast to her purse. The cake in all the deli- 


1 68 Three Little Cousins 

ciousness of nut-spotted icing and rich interior, was 
delivered to her when she paid over the amount 
asked for it. Taking the treasure in her hands 
she bore it over to where Mary was helping her 
aunt count up the money they had taken in. 
Polly set the cake on the table before Mary. 
“ There,” she said, “ it is all yours.” 

“ What do you mean ? ” exclaimed Mary. 
“ Who said so ? ” 

“ I say so. I bought it for you because you 
said it looked so perfectly delicious.” 

Mary was quite overcome by Polly’s gener- 
osity, but she understood the motive, and accepted 
the cake graciously, promising to divide it with 
the family. It certainly was a delicious cake, and 
Polly really enjoyed her share of it, feeling that in 
this instance she could have her cake and eat it. 

“ Over a hundred dollars ! I can scarcely be- 
lieve it,” said Miss Ada when all the receipts 
were in. But so it was, and so did little Ellis 
Dixon have his burdens lifted, for a hundred dol- 
lars will go a long way when fish can be had for 
the catching, and when one has his own potato 
patch. 




















CHAPTER X 
Arabs 

Of all the things which most amused the 
three little girls and their friend, Grace, they 
enjoyed dressing up at dusk, and, in their 
queer costumes, going around from cottage to 
cottage to call. Uncle Dick was very clever in 
painting their faces so that they appeared as 
birds with owl-like eyes and beaks or as cats, 
rabbits or some other animal. At other times 
they were Indians in war paint and feathers ; 
again they were Egyptians or Chinese and 
dressed to suit the character. 

What shall we do this evening ? ” said Polly 
one day when the question of the evening’s fun 
was being talked over. “We want to go to Mrs. 
Phillips’s this time because she gives us such good 
cakes.” 

“ It’s pretty far,” said Molly doubtfully. “ It 
is almost to the village, and there are some rough 
boys down that way. I don’t mind going to Mrs. 
Phillips’s in the morning, but if we should happen 


172 


Three Little Cousins 


to get caught there after the sun goes down I 
shouldn’t like it.” 

“We needn’t get caught late,” Polly pro- 
tested, “ besides, it is so much more mysterious to 
go around when it is a little bit duskish. It isn’t 
as if any one of us would be alone ; there will be 
four and nobody around here would do anything 
to hurt us, anyhow.” 

“ No, I don’t suppose any one really would,” 
Molly returned weakly, her objections over-ruled. 
And therefore when the cottages began to loom 
darkly against the evening sky, the four little 
girls sallied forth, draped in white sheets, and 
made their way over the hilltop to the road be- 
yond. They had usually confined their visits to 
their acquaintances in the immediate neighbor- 
hood, so their aunt did not trouble herself to in- 
quire where they were going that evening, other- 
wise she might have forbidden the walk they had 
in mind. 

“ Don’t they look like four dear little Arabs ? ” 
said Miss Ada to her brother. “ They make a 
perfect picture as they go over the hill in the 
evening light. How much they enjoy these little 
frolics.” She turned from watching the white- 


Arabs 173 

sheeted four who soon disappeared down the 
road. 

It was great fun, thought the girls, to call upon 
their various friends aud pretend they were for- 
eigners who did not understand the language of 
those whom they were visiting ; yet they under- 
stood enough to accept refreshments offered them, 
and managed to say, “ thank you ” and “ good- 
bye.” 

It was after they had been regaled upon cakes 
and lemonade at Mrs. Phillips’s that the moment 
came which Molly had been dreading. The 
shadows had deepened and the stars were trying 
to come out, while a little light still lingered in 
the western sky. “ We’d better not take the 
short cut,” said Molly. “ It is so rough that 
way, and it is muddy in places ; we’ll go around 
by the road.” The lights were twinkling out 
from the fishermen’s homes and from the vessels 
anchored in the cove. There were not many per- 
sons on the road, and the four little girls hastened 
their steps. 

Presently a shout, then the bark of a dog arose 
from behind them, and in another minute they 
were surrounded by a crowd of jeering boys and 


174 


Three Little Cousins 


barking dogs. ‘‘Yawl Yaw! Yaw!” shouted 
the boys. “ Sic ’em. Sailor 1 Sick ’em, Towser ! ” 
The dogs nipped at the retreating heels and the 
boys twitched the flowing robes of the four 
Arabs. 

“ Oh, let us alone ! Let us alone ! ” shrieked 
Molly. 

“ Who be ye ? ” cried one of the boys peering 
into their faces. 

“ What ye doin’ dressed up this here way ? ” 
said another. The paint upon their faces so dis- 
guised them that they were not recognized by 
any of the boys, if, indeed, any knew them. 

“ They ain’t none o’ our folks,” said another 
boy, trying to jerk off Polly’s head covering. 

She turned on him fiercely. “ You ought to 
be ashamed of yourselves,” she cried. “ How 
would you like any one to treat your sisters so ? ” 

“ How’d you like any one to treat your sisters 
so ? ” mimicked the boy in a piping voice. “ I 
ain’t got no sister, and if I had she wouldn’t be 
traipsin’ ’round the P’int in circus clothes.” 

Wrenching herself from the boy’s grasp, Polly 
started to run, the other girls following. One 
boy thrust out his foot tripping Grace who fell 


Arabs 


175 


sprawling in the dusty road. Her companions 
stopped in their flight to come to her rescue. 
“ Oh, you bad, bad boys,” cried Molly indig- 
nantly. “ If I don’t tell Cap’n Dave on you.” 

‘‘We ain’t feared o’ Cap’n Dave,” was the 
scoflSng reply. 

The girls picked up the weeping Grace. “ Are 
you hurt ? ” they whispered. 

“ I don’t know,” whimpered Grace. “ Oh, how 
can we get home ? I want to go home.” 

Her weeping caused cessation in hostilities for 
a moment, but as soon as the four figures started 
forward they were again surrounded and the 
teasing recommenced. 

But just as the girls were in despair of ever es- 
caping from their tormentors, another boy came 
up. “ What’s up ? ” he asked. 

“ Oh, nawthin’,” replied one of the boys laugh- 
ing. “We cal’late to keep furriners away from 
the P’int, and these here ain’t dressed like 
Amur’cans.” 

“ Who are they ? ” The boy bent over to peer 
into Molly’s face. She gave a joyful cry. “ Oh, 
Ellis, Ellis, save us from them. They won’t let 
us go home.” 


176 Three Little Cousins 

The newcomer turned. “ Say, you fellows,” 
he said. “ You’d ought to be ashamed. These 
here is friends of mine. If any of you fellows 
touches one of ’em. I’ll pitch into him like sin. 
Don’t you know who they are ? They’re the 
little gals up to the Reid cottage, that’s been so 
good to us, nursing the baby and gettin’ up that 
fair and all that.” 

The boys slunk away. “We didn’t know it 
was them,” the largest one said. “ Why didn’t 
they say so ? We thought it was that crowd of 
sassy youngsters over by Back Landing ; they’re 
always so fresh. One of ’em sneaked off with 
Dan’s boat yesterday and we wanted to pay ’em 
back.” 

“ I’m awful sorry we scared you,” said another 
boy, coming up. “ Was you hurt, sissy, when 
you fell down ? ” 

“ Oh, no, not so very much,” replied Grace, 
ceasing her sobbing. 

“We’ll see you home safe,” said one of the 
boys. “ Come on, fellers. Lem, go get a lan- 
tern ; we’re nearest your house.” 

Lem ran obediently and in a few minutes re- 
turned with the big lantern in his hand. He 


Arabs 


177 


stalked on ahead, the others trooping after, the 
dogs at the heels of their masters. All the way 
they escorted the little girls, Ellis not ceasing to 
voice his indignation, nor the boys to explain and 
excuse themselves, and it is needless to say that 
it was a relief to all concerned when the wan- 
dering Arabs were safe within their own dwell- 
ings. 

In spite of the outcome of their adventure, the 
girls did not care to repeat it and never again 
wanted to go beyond the cottages in their own 
immediate vicinity. Yet, unpleasant as the expe- 
rience was, it resulted in more than one effort on 
the part of the gang of boys to make up for their ill 
behavior. The very next morning after the affair, 
Polly, who was the first down-stairs, saw a 
tall boy coming toward the cottage and went out 
on the porch to meet him. 

“ You one of the little gals that was down the 
road last night ? ” he asked as he came up. “ One 
of them that was dressed up ? ” 

Polly nodded. “Yes, I was there.” 

“ Us boys didn’t know you lived here. We 
wouldn’t have hurt a hair of your head if we had 
knowed who you was.” Then he added some- 


178 Three Little Cousins 

what shamefacedly, “I fetched ye a salmon. 
Maybe ye ain’t never see a salmon jest out of tlie 
water. They’re pretty-colored, ain’t they ? ” And 
he held up to view the glistening pink fish. 

“ Oh, how beautiful it is. It seems too pretty 
to catch, doesn’t it ? ” said Polly bending over to 
examine the fish the boy laid on the grass. 

He stared at her, not quite comprehending how 
any one could think any fish too pretty to be 
caught. “ They’re awful good eatin’,” he went 
on to say, “ but they don’t often come in here.” 

“ How did you happen to get this one ? ” asked 
Polly. 

“ It was in my father’s pound this morning, and 
I begged him for it. Shall I take it into the 
kitchen for you ? ” he added hastily. 

“ Oh, do you mean to give it to us ? How very 
good you are,” said Polly appreciatively. 

The boy gave a short laugh. “ I wasn’t very 
good last night, was I ? ” he said, and Polly un- 
derstood that this was a peace-offering. 

That afternoon two younger lads were seen 
hanging around the house bearing a mysterious 
something done up in a newspaper. “ What in 
conscience do them boys want ? ” said Luella, 


Arabs 


179 


looking out of the kitchen window. It’s Billy 
Laws and Horeb Potter. What are they peekin’ 
around here for I want to know.” One of the 
boys now advanced toward the house, but at the 
appearance of Miss Ada on the porch, he took to 
his heels, and lurked in the distance where his 
companion was uneasily waiting. 

Luella went out to Miss Ada. ‘‘ Them boys 
has got some errant here,” she said, “ but they 
won’t come in whilst they see you on the piazza.” 
Miss Ada reentered the house. The three little 
girls peeped from the windows, looking out from 
behind the blinds. In a few minutes the boys 
came stealthily forth, tiptoed toward the house, 
halted fearfully, took a few steps back, came on 
more quickly. He who bore the newspaper 
package was suddenly pushed violently forward 
by the other and came on with a trot, bolted into 
the kitchen, laid the package on the table before 
Luella and exclaimed hastily : “ It’s for the little 
gals ! ” then he took to his heels, not stopping 
till he was clear out of sight. 

Luella came laughing into the living-room. 
“ Here’s another present,” she announced. “ You 
open it. Miss Ada.” 


i8o Three Little Cousins 

‘‘ What can it be ? ” exclaimed the children, 
gathering around their aunt who untied the 
string of the damp parcel, unwrapped it and dis- 
closed to view a huge lobster, fiery red, and still 
warm from recent boiling. 

Isn’t he a monster ? ” exclaimed Miss Ada. 
‘‘ I don’t believe I ever saw a larger. We’ll have 
him for supper, Luella. I hope you took half the 
salmon to Mrs. Wharton, for we couldn’t eat that 
and this, too. Children, you will have to invite 
Grace over to have her share. I suppose some of 
it is due to her anyhow.” 

She ought to have it all,” said Polly, “ for 
she was the only one who was hurt.” 

I’m afraid she’d suffer more still if she at- 
tempted to devour this entire lobster,” laughed 
Miss Ada. ‘‘We’d better spare her little turn, 
Polly, and help her eat this.” 

It was after such of the lobster as they could 
eat had been disposed of, and the children with 
no desire for long wanderings, were safely 
gathered around the fire, that a tap was heard 
at the door. Uncle Dick arose to open it and 
received into his hands a large cold jar, while a 
small lad piped out: “Jerry sent this to the 


Arabs i8i 

little gals. They’ll keep.” And then the figure 
vanished into the darkness. 

“ I don’t know who Jerry is, nor what ‘ this ’ 
is,” said Uncle Dick, bearing in the glass jar and 
setting it on the table. “ It’s for the ‘little gals’ 
I was told. Great Csesar ! It’s clams, carefully 
shelled. See here, Ada, we won’t have to buy 
any more provender this season at this rate. 
When we get short of provisions we can send 
out our Arabs on the road, for behold the result 
of their evening’s migrations.” 

Every one laughed at this latest gift, and it was 
set away for the next day’s use. But the end 
was not yet. On the door sill the next morning 
was discovered a splint basket. To the handle 
was tied a scrap of paper on which was 
awkwardly written : “ To the little gals.” Molly 
was the finder of this. “Hurry down all of 
you ! ” she called to the others. “ There is a 
present.” 

“ Another one ? ” said Polly over the baluster. 
“ What is it ? ” 

“ I haven’t looked,” was the reply. 

The other children, joined by Miss Ada, came 
down as soon as possible, their curiosity excited. 


i 82 


Three Little Cousins 


Molly lifted the wet seaweed covering the con- 
tents of the basket and they saw a pile of shin- 
ing little mackerel. 

“ Tinkers ! ” cried Miss Ada. “ What a nice 
lot of them ! Oh, and there are some butter-fish, 
too. They are all cleaned beautifully, and we 
must have some for breakfast ; it will take only 
a few minutes to cook them. You children can 
run over to Grace with her share.” 

This the little girls were glad to do, but re- 
turned with their platter full explaining that a 
smaller lot had been left at the Whartons’. 

But two more conscience offerings were re- 
ceived after this. Four thick braids of sweet 
grass were found hanging on the door-knob, and, 
during the day a man delivered a mysterious box 
slatted across one end. This was found to con- 
tain a beautiful kitten of the variety called 
“ Coon.” The children were wild over this last 
gift, the only drawback to their delight being 
the difficulty of deciding which one should take 
it home. Their Aunt Ada came to the rescue by 
telling them not to bother about it till the time 
came and then to let circumstances settle it. 
Her own little cat, Cosey, was not inclined 


Arabs 


183 

to favor the intruder at first, but in a few days 
she began to mother it and they soon became 
good friends. 

“Are you glad that the boys scared us that 
night ? ” asked Polly one day not long after the 
“ day of gifts ” as the children called it. 

Molly weighed the subject. “When I think 
of the dear kitten and the salmon and the 
tinkers.” 

“ And the lobster.” 

“Yes, and the sweet grass, then I am, but 
when I think of how dreadfully frightened we 
were, I’m not.” 

“ I don’t intend to remember the scare,” said 
Polly philosophically. 

“Neither do I,” added Mary. “I’d be an 
Arab again for the sake of finding out how 
really good-hearted those boys are,” which 
showed that Mary had a good heart, too. 




CHAPTER XI 
The Rosebeny Family 








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CHAPTER XI 
The Rosebeny Family 

The green grass of June had turned to russet ; 
the bay berry bushes began to look dingy, and 
the waxy cranberries in the bog were turning to 
a delicate pink. It had been a dry season and the 
children could safely traverse the bog from end 
to end without danger of getting their feet wet. 
Ellis was their pilot to this fascinating spot, and 
the day of their introduction to it was one long 
to be remembered. 

It was one morning when Ellis came around 
to the back door to deliver clams that they first 
heard of the bog. He added to the weekly 
order a little bag of pinky- white cranberries. 
‘‘I thought maybe you’d like ’em,” he said. 
‘‘Miss Alice Harvey says they’re much better 
when they’re not quite ripe. Ora tried some and 
they were fine, but they took a lot of sugar.” 

“Thank you for remembering us,” said Miss 
Ada as she received the offering. “ How much, 
Ellis ? ” 


Three Little Cousins 


“ Nawthin’. They’re easy to pick and there’s 
plenty of ’em,” he made reply. 

Miss Ada accepted the gift in the spirit in 
which it was intended. “ I’m sure we shall en- 
joy them,” she declared. “Where is the bog, 
Ellis ? Is it very wet there ? ” 

“ ’Tain’t wet at all this year. This has been 
such a dry season. It’s down back of Cap’n 
Orrin’s barn.” 

“ Oh, is that the place ? ” Molly was peep- 
ing over her aunt’s shoulder. “I’ve always 
longed to go there but I was afraid it was all 
sloppy and marshy ; some one said it was.” 

“Would you like me to go there with you?” 
said Ellis bashfully. “ I know where the cran- 
berries grow, and there’s lots of other things 
down there, the kind you city people like to get, 
weeds, we call ’em.” 

“ Oh, may we go ? ” Molly appealed to her 
aunt. 

“ Why yes, I have no objection. It is perfectly 
safe if it’s not wet. I suppose you may encounter 
a garter snake or two, but you don’t mind them, 
Molly.” 

“ Wait for us, Ellis,” said the little girl speed- 


The Roseberty Family 189 

ing away for her cousins with whom she returned 
in a moment. All three were breathlessly eager 
to start on the voyage of discovery, for with 
Ellis as leader, into what regions of the unknown 
might they not penetrate. 

Over the hill they went, leaving Cap’n Orrin’s 
mild-eyed cows gazing after them ruminatively 
as they crept under the fence which separated 
the pasture from the wild bottom land at the 
foot of the hill. On the other side arose the 
ridge along which were ranged cottages looking 
both coveward and seaward. A winding path 
led past runty little apple trees and huge 
boulders, and finally was lost in the tangle of 
growth overspreading the marsh. 

“ It is dry enough now,” said Mary exultantly, 
setting her foot on a tuft of dry grass. Where 
are the cranberries, Ellis ? I want to see those 
first.” 

“You are standing right over some,” he said 
smiling. 

Mary looked down, but only a mass of weeds 
and grass greeted her eyes. “ I don’t see them,” 
she declared. 

Ellis laughed, bent over and parted the grass 


igo Three Little Cousins 

to disclose the delicate wreaths of green, and the 
pretty smooth cranberries, tucked away in the 
dry grass. 

“ As if they were afraid of being picked,” re- 
marked Mary. “ You will not escape me that 
way.” And down on her knees she went in 
search of the pink fruit. 

Molly meanwhile had gone further afield, and 
was gathering flowers strange to her, and grasses 
as lovely as the blossoms. Earlier in the season, 
she had delighted in the rosy plumes of the hard- 
back, the sweet pinky-white clover, the wild 
partridge peas, but here were new acquaintances 
which were not to be found outside the marsh, 
and upon them she pounced eagerly. 

It was Polly, however, who discovered the 
Roseberry family, for Polly, who had spent her 
life far from cities, had developed her imagina- 
tion, and could fashion from unpromising 
material the most fascinating things, and though 
she, too, picked her share of cranberries, she also 
gathered a lot of roseberries which she declared 
were the biggest she had ever seen. These she 
bore away in triumph, while Molly carried her 
bouquet with a satisfied air and Mary was quite 


The Roseberry Family 19 ^ 

content with having the largest showing of cran- 
berries. So they returned, well pleased, to the 
cottage. 

‘‘We had the splendidest morning,” said Molly, 
setting her flowers in a large vase. “ I never 
knew that bogs could be so perfectly fine. What 
are you doing, Polly ? ” 

Polly was seated on the floor industriously 
picking off her roseberries from the twigs. 
“Wait and you will see,” was her answer. “ Do 
get me some pins, Molly, a whole lot. Aunt 
Ada will give you some.” 

Molly’s curiosity being aroused, she rushed off 
to her aunt, returning with a paper of pins. She 
squatted down on the floor by Polly’s side. 
Mary, meanwhile, had gone to the kitchen to 
superintend Luella’s cooking of the cranberries. 
Polly stuck a pin in one side of the biggest, 
fattest roseberry, then another in the other side. 
“ This is Mr. Eoseberry,” she said, “ and these 
are his two arms. Now his head goes on, and 
then his legs. I use the pins, you see, because 
you can bend them so as to make the people 
sit down.” She held up the completed man- 
nikin. “ Now I must pick out some berries 


192 Three Liiile Cousins 

for Mrs. Roseberry, and then I’ll make the chil- 
dren.” 

“ Polly, you are so ridiculous,” said Molly in 
a tone of admiration, “ but do you know, they 
are awfully funny with their little round heads 
and bodies.” Polly worked away industriously 
till she had completed her entire family. “ Now 
what?” said Molly. “What in the world is 
that?” 

“ It is a lamp,” returned Polly, deftly fitting a 
base to her red globe. “ Now, if I had some 
pasteboard I could make some furniture, and 
we’d play with the Roseberry family this after- 
noon.” 

“Dinner is nearly ready now,” said Molly, 
“ but it will be fun to play with them this after- 
noon. We could have two or three families. 
What can I name mine?” She watched Polly 
interestedly as she put the last touch to a vase in 
which she stuck a bit of green. 

“ You might call them Pod,” said Polly. 
“These are really the seed pods of the wild 
roses, you know. They are like little apples, 
aren’t they ? ” 

“Oh, I’ll call them Appleby,” said Molly. 


The Rosebeny Family 193 

We know some people named that. Save that 
tiny one for the baby, Polly.” 

“ The cranberries are perfectly delicious,” said 
Mary, coming in from the kitchen, ‘‘ but they 
have to cool before we can eat them. Luella 
says they take so much sugar that they will keep 
perfectly for me to take some home. Oh, what 
curious little figures.” 

“ This is the Eoseberry family,” Polly told 
her, indicating the dolls on the right, and 
these,” she pointed to those on her left, “ these 
are the Applebys.” 

You must have some, too, Mary,” said Molly. 
“ What shall you call yours ? ” 

Mary had picked up one of the little figures. 
“ Why, they are made of hips, aren’t they ? ” 

“ What are hips ? ” asked Molly. 

“ That is what we call the berries of the briar- 
rose, and in England the hawthorn berries are 
haws.” 

“ Hips and haws,” sang Molly. “ Don’t they 
go nicely together ? Shall you call your people 
Mr. and Mrs. Hips ? ” 

“ Why, yes, I can. I think that would be a very 
good name. Are we going to play with them ? ” 


194 


Three Little Cousins 


“ After dinner we are, if Polly can find any- 
thing to make furniture of.” 

Polly’s ingenuity did not fail her here, for, by 
the use of some match ends, birch bark and a 
needle and thread she contrived all sorts of things 
and then each girl hunted up a box for a house, 
so that these new playthings proved to be very 
fascinating. 

But at last the every-day commonplaces grew 
too dull for Polly, and she suddenly exclaimed : 
“I’m tired of just visiting and talking about 
measles and nurses and mustard plasters ! Pm 
going to take the Roseberry family down to the 
shore. They’re going to have an adventure.” 

“ Oh, Polly, what ? Can ours go, too ? ” 
cried Molly. “ I would like to have the Applebys 
meet an adventure, too.” 

“ And I’d like Mr. and Mrs. Hips to have one,” 
echoed Mary. 

“ Are they very wicked, black-hearted people ? ” 
asked Polly, darkly. 

“ Why — why ” Mary hesitated and looked 

to Molly for her cue. 

“ Do they have to be wicked to have an ad- 
venture ? ” asked Molly. 


The Rosebeny Family 195 

“ If they join the Roseberries, they’ll have to 
be, for the Roseberries are wreckers and smug- 
glers.” Polly spoke impressively, and at this 
flight of fancy Molly and Mary gazed at her ad- 
miringly. Yet they were not quite willing that 
their families should give up their morals to too 
great an extent. 

“ What do they have to do ? ” asked Mary, de- 
termined to And out the worst. 

“ Mine have a cave,” said Polly, mysteriously. 
“ It is on an island — I know what island I am 
going to have — and there they hide their 
treasures. They are counterfeiters, too,” she 
added to their list of crimes, “ and they have 
chests of counterfeit money — sand dollars.” 

Molly laughed and Polly looked at her re- 
proachfully. “ It is as good as any other count- 
erfeit money,” she remarked. 

“Never mind the money. Go on, Polly.” 
Molly was enjoying her cousin’s inventions. 

“ Well, they go out in a boat on stormy nights 
and when a vessel is in distress, instead of help- 
ing, they don’t do anything but just wait till the 
vessel is wrecked and then they help themselves 
to what they can get. They have, oh, such a 


Three Little Cousins 


196 

store of diaraouds and rubies and precious stones 
in their cave, and they have their own vessel 
that flies a black flag.” 

“Then they’re pirates,” said Mary recoiling. 
“ I don’t want the Hips to be pirates.” 

“ They don’t have to be,” Polly calmly assured 
her. “ They can be as good as they want to, and 
can be on one of the vessels that gets wrecked.” 

“ Then they’ll all get drowned.” 

“ Ho, they needn’t ; they can cling to a raft 
and go ashore on some desert island.” 

Having saved the lives as well as the reputa- 
tions of the Hips family, although they would 
probably lose everything else, Mary was satisfied, 
but Molly was ready to compromise. A little 
spice of wickedness seemed necessary to make 
her Applebys interesting. “ My family can be 
smugglers,” she announced, “ but I don’t want 
them to be pirates and I don’t want them wrecked 
either. Smugglers aren’t so wicked as pirates ; 
they only bring in things that you ought to pay 
duty on. Uncle Dick told me, and Mary’s father 
told her that in England almost everything comes 
in free, and that the United States is as mean as 
can be about making people pay for what is brought 


197 


The Roseberry Family 

into the country. A lady, Molly saw on the 
steamer when they came over, had an awful time 
about a shabby old sealskin coat she’d had for 
years, and just because she wore it ashore from 
the steamer, they made an awful fuss about 
it.” 

“Well, I don’t understand about it, but if the 
United States said it was wrong, of course it 
must have been ; they are always right,” said 
Polly loyally. “ I don’t exactly know about 
smuggling,” she confessed, “ however, the Kose- 
berries are going to be smugglers.” 

“ Uncle Dick was telling us about smugglers 
the other night.” 

“Yes, I know, that is what made me think of 
it. He showed me the island where there used 
to be a smuggler’s cave.” 

“ I remember it ; we saw it when we were out 
sailing one day.” 

“We must build a birch bark ship for the Hips 
family,” said Polly, changing the subject. 
“Your Applebys can live on my island and if 
they don’t want to associate with the Eoseberries 
they can have a cave to themselves.” 

“ Koseberry is such a nice pleasant name for 


Three Little Cousins 


198 

wicked people,” remarked Mary. “ Why don’t 
you call them something else ? ” 

“ Nobody ever does call them that,” returned 
Polly readily. “ The father is the leader of the 
gang, and he is Bold Ben. His three sons are 
One-eyed Peter, Crooked Tom, and Sly Sam. 
They call his wife Old Mag, and then there are 
two cousins, twins ; they are Smiling Steve and 
Grinning Jim.” 

“ Oh, Polly, how do you think of such names ? ” 
said Molly delightedly. “ What does Old Mag 
do?” 

“ She pulls in things from the wreck and she 
cooks the meals. Then, when the men are all 
away smuggling, she sits in the cave and spends 
her time looking at the jewels and letting them 
drip through her fingers.” 

“ Jewels can’t drip,” observed Mary in a mat- 
ter-of-fact way. 

“Well, they look as if they could,” returned 
Polly. “ The diamonds are like drops of water, 
the pearls like milk and the rubies like blood.” 

“ I know where you found that,” said Molly ; 
“ in the fairy tale we were reading the other 
day.” 










y } 


“They’ve Got To Be Wrecked, You Know 









199 


The Roseberry Family 

Polly admitted the fact and the ship being now 
ready to launch, they proceeded to the shore 
where Polly pointed out the island. This was a 
large rock, nearly covered at high tide, but now 
showing quite a surface above the water. Its 
rugged sides held caves quite large enough for 
persons of such size as the Roseberry family, and 
they were presently hidden behind their barnacled 
barriers. In a little pool the Hips family were 
set afloat while the Applebys contented them- 
selves with gathering stores of supposed precious 
stones from the little beach. 

The Hips family had hardly set sail before 
Polly invoked a storm and stirred to monster 
waves the waters in their pool, so they were in 
great danger. “ Oh, dear, the youngest Hips is 
floating away and I can’t save him,” cried Mary. 

Never mind, let him go ; there are plenty 
more of them,” returned Polly heartlessly bang- 
ing her stick up and down in the water so the 
ship would rock more violently. “ They’ve got 
to be wrecked, you know,” she added. “I’ll 
drive them on that rock, then you can grab them 
before they sink and get them on the ra/t.” 

Mary managed to rescue all but one more of 


200 


Three Little Cousins 


the family, and these were set adrift on a piece 
of birch bark to which Polly tied a string that 
they might not go beyond return. She also al- 
lowed the storm to cease, but this was because 
the gang of wreckers had to haul up the ship and 
gather in their plunder. She kept up so lively 
an account of their doings that Molly left the 
Applebys to their own devices and Mary drew 
the Hipses to shore that she might listen to 
Polly’s blood-curdling account of Bold Ben and 
the rest. Polly did not have to draw altogether 
from her imagination, for her brothers had been 
too often her playmates for her not to be ready 
with tales of plunder and adventure. 

Time passed very quickly and the children be- 
came so absorbed in the manoeuvres of the gang 
that they did not notice the stealthy rise of the 
tide till Mary exclaimed, “ Oh, the Hipses have 
floated off and they were quite high on the 
beach ! ” 

Polly looked around her. “ No wonder,” she 
said ; “ the tide is rising. We’d better start 
back.” Leaving Bold Ben and his comrades to 
their fate, she ran to the further side of the rock, 
but here she hesitated. The sea was steadily 


201 


The Roseberry Family 

making in, sending little cascades over the weed- 
covered ledges each time it retreated. 

“ Can’t you get across ? ” asked Molly, as she 
came up with her Applebys, and saw Polly stand- 
ing still. 

I’m almost afraid to jump,” said Polly, ‘‘for if 
a big wave should come in suddenly it might wash 
in over my feet and the sea- weed is so slippery 
I’m afraid to trust to it, where it is shallower.” 

Molly looked up at the rocky shelf jutting out 
above her. “ If we could only get up there,” she 
said. 

“ But we can’t ; it is too far to climb to that 
first jutty-out place, and we can’t crawl under 
and then up, like flies.” 

Mary bearing the sole survivor of the unfor- 
tunate Hips family now came up. “ I had to let 
the rest go,” she said. “ They were beyond 
reach. I fished this one out of the water just in 
time. What is the matter ? Why don’t you go 
on, Polly?” 

For answer Polly pointed silently to the creep- 
ing waves at her feet. 

“ What are we going to do ? ” asked Mary in 
alarm. 


202 


Three Little Cousins 


“ Stay here till the tide goes down, I suppose. 
This rock is never covered,” said Molly. 

“But we may get dreadfully splashed,” re- 
turned Mary. 

“ I hadn’t thought of that,” said Polly dubi- 
ously. She looked at the rock above her, and 
then at her two cousins. “Which of you two 
could stand on my shoulders and get hold of that 
rock so as to draw herself up and go for help ? ” 

“ Oh, I never could do it in the world,” said 
Mary, shrinking back. 

Polly turned to Molly. “ Could you ? ” 

“ I’m afraid I couldn’t pull myself up so far, 
but I could stand and let you get on my 
shoulders, if you could do the pulling up part.” 

“ I could do that easily enough,” Polly told 
her. “ I’ve often practiced it with the boys, and 
we have swung ourselves up the rocks in the 
mountains out home. Are you sure you can bear 
my weight, Molly ? ” 

“ I can try.” 

“We’ll both do it,” Mary offered. “ You can 
put one foot on my shoulder and one on Molly’s, 
then you won’t be so heavy for either one.” 

“ All right. Steady yourselves. Here goes.” 


203 


The Roseberry Family 

And in a moment Polly had clambered to the 
supporting shoulders, had caught hold of the jut- 
ting rock and had drawn herself up. As she 
gained her feet and sped away crying : “ I’ll be 

right back,” Molly breathed a sigh of relief. “ I 
was so afraid a piece of the rock would split off 
and she’d fall,” she confessed to Mary. 

It took but a little time to bring Uncle Dick 
and one of his friends who swung themselves 
down easily and set the two stranded children 
upon a safe spot, none too soon, for a big wave 
almost immediately sent a shower of salt spray 
over the rook where they had been standing. 

‘^Tou would have been drenched to the skin,” 
said Uncle Dick as he led the way to the house, 
while, left to their fate, the wicked Roseberries 
perished miserably. 










CHAPTER Xn 
East and West 

By the middle of September the cottages on 
the Point were nearly all deserted, though the 
Reids lingered on, to the children’s satisfaction. 

“ Oh, dear, I don’t want to go back to school, 
to horrid old examples and things, although I 
do want to see my dear Miss Isabel,” said Molly, 
one morning just before the close of their stay. 

“ I don’t want to see Miss Sharp, I can tell you 
that, but I do want to see mother and Reggie 
and Gwen,” said Mary. 

“I hate to leave you all,” Polly put in, 
“ though I shall be glad to see mamma and papa 
and the boys. I’ll like to see the ponies too, and 
the mountains and everything, but I do wish you 
girls were going with me.” She really had fewer 
regrets than her cousins for Polly loved the free- 
dom of the west, and the miles between seemed 
very long to the little girl who had seen neither 


2o8 


Three Little Cousins 


father, mother nor brothers for three months. 
To Mary the delights of unlimited supplies of 
sweet potatoes and corn, bountiful plates of ice- 
cream, freedom from the vigilance of a strict 
governess, and the range of fields and woods, 
where one need not fear of trespassing, and 
which were not enclosed by high walls, all these 
compensated much for her separation from her 
family. 

The time for her leave-taking of America was 
drawing near, however, for her father wrote that 
they would probably sail about the first of 
October, and Uncle Dick would take Polly home 
about the same time. Aunt Ada, too, had prom- 
ised to go to Colorado for a visit so Polly felt 
that she had anticipations the others did not 
have. 

“ I wish we could all go to Polly’s ; that’s what 
I wish,” declared Molly. “ I wish my father and 
mother and Mary and Miss Ainslee were all 
going.” 

“ I speak for Miss Ainslee to sit with me,” said 
Uncle Dick coming up with an open letter in his 
hand. He handed a second letter to Molly. 
“ Can you read it ? ” he asked. 


East and West 


209 


“ Of course I can,” returned Molly indignantly. 
Then she added, “ Mamma always writes to me 
on papa’s typewriter.” 

Her uncle laughed, though Molly could not see 
why. 

“ You’d better read every word in it,” he re- 
marked, “for there is big news there for a young 
woman of your size.” 

Molly hastily tore open the envelope and began 
to read. She had not finished the page, however, 
before she cried out : “ Hews ! News ! I should 
think it was news. What do you think, Mary ? 
What do you think, Polly ? ” 

“ Can’t imagine,” said Polly. Then as a second 
thought occurred to her, “ Oh, is your mother 
going to let you go home with me ? I know my 
mother has asked to have you, for I wrote to her 
to beg that you could come.” 

Molly shook her head. “ No, it’s east instead 
of west, Polly. Mother and I are going to Eng- 
land with Mary and Uncle Arthur.” 

“ Oh ! ” Mary jumped to her feet and clasped 
her hand ecstatically. “ Oh, Molly, I am so glad. 
Aren’t you ? ” 

“Yes, I am except for one thing; I know I 


210 


Three Little Cousins 


shall be scared to death of Miss Sharp. Is she 
really so very, very strict ? ” 

“ My word ! but you’d think so. Fancy never 
being allowed to run, nor to climb nor to do any- 
thing one really likes to do, and, oh, Molly, I 
wonder will you eat your meals in the nursery 
with us children. There’s nasty rice pudding 
twice a week, you know, and there are never hot 
rolls nor biscuits for breakfast as you have here, 
then we do have horribly cold houses in winter.” 

“ Oh ! ” Molly looked quite disturbed by this 
report. But presently her face again broke into 
smiles. “ But then, to see England and to be 
with you, Mary. We shall go up to London in 
the spring and we shall spend the winter in 
Cornwall or Devon, where it is not so very cold, 
mother says.” 

“ Oh, we are to be in the country, then,” said 
Mary. “I’m glad of that. Papa thought we 
should take our country home again this winter ; 
we were not there last year.” 

“It’s so funny to go to the country for 
winter and the city for summer,” remarked Polly. 
“ We do just the opposite.” 

“ Oh, but we like the country in winter,” Mary 


East and West 


211 


explained. ‘‘ It’s jolly good sport to be there 
then. We have a proper little pony of our own, 
you know, and we really have quite good times.” 

Polly laughed. “ It is so funny to hear Mary 
say a ‘proper ’ pony. We would say a real pony, 
wouldn’t we ? ” 

“ I shall be corrected a great many times for 
the American things I have learned to say,” 
said Mary. “ I’ve no doubt but that Miss Sharp 
will be continually coming down on me for say- 
ing them. She is a sharp one, true enough. I’ll 
have to watch myself.” 

“ She needn’t try to correct me,” Molly put in. 

“ Oh, but you are an American,” Mary has- 
tened to reassure her, “ and you’ll do just as your 
mother bids you, of course.” 

This relieved the situation for Molly. The 
prospect of frequent drives behind the “ proper 
little pony,” and the pleasure of a real English 
Christmas, which Mary had described in glowing 
colors, cheered her up, and she stated that she 
thought she could stand Miss Sharp as long as 
her own mother would always be on hand to 
refer to. 

As the three were talking it all over, Uncle 


212 


Three Little Cousins 


Dick appeared at the door. “Well, Mollykins,” 
he said, “ how do you like your news ? ” 

“ Oh, do you know it, too ? ” she said, running 
up to him. “ I like it very much, but I wish you 
and Aunt Ada and Polly were going, too.” 

“ That would be too many at once,” he re- 
turned. “ Go in and see your Aunt Ada ; she 
has something to tell you.” 

“ Who is it about ? ” asked Molly. 

Uncle Dick walked down the porch steps. “ It 
concerns me very much,” he said over his 
shoulder. 

“ Concerns him ? Do you suppose he is going 
to England, too ? ” said Mary. 

“ Let’s go and find out,” returned Molly. And 
the three ran indoors to where Miss Ada sat. 

“ Well, kitties,” she said as they came in, “ there 
is a lot of news to-day, isn’t there ? ” 

“ Yes, isn’t it fine that mother and I are going 
to England ? That is what you meant, isn’t 
it ? ” 

“ Not all.” 

“ Uncle Dick said you had something to tell 
us,” said Polly. 

“ So I have. It concerns Polly more than any 


East and West 


213 

of you, though it might concern Molly if she 
were not going abroad.” 

“ That sounds like a puzzle,” laughed Polly. 
‘‘But Uncle Dick said it concerned him.” 

“ The silly boy ! ” Miss Ada drew down the 
corners of her mouth. “ No doubt he’ll make it 
his concern. Why Polly, it is this : Mr. Per- 
kins, your tutor, has had a good offer in Denver 
and as he is so well and strong now he thinks he 
must accept it, and as Walter is old enough to go 
away to school, your father and mother thought 
a man was not needed to teach you and the 
others, so you are to have a new teacher. Guess 
who it is to be ? ” 

“ Oh, I can’t. Tell me.” Polly was all eager- 
ness. 

“ Miss Ainslee.” 

“ Not my Miss Ainslee ? ” cried Molly in sur- 
prise. 

“Your Miss Ainslee.” 

“ Oh, I’m jealous,” said Molly. “ Oh, Polly, 
to think you will have her all to yourself. Oh, 
dear ! ” 

“ But you will not be here, honey,” said her 
aunt, “ and besides it is better for Miss Ainslee 


214 Three Little Cousins 

that she should go, for the doctor thinks she can- 
not get along in the east, and that she must 
either stop teaching or go to another climate. 
She isn’t ill exactly, but it is better that she 
should not wait till she is. So you see ” 

“ Oh, I see, but I am sorry all the same,” said 
Molly dolefully. 

“ And I am tremendously glad,” said Polly. 
“ I liked Mr. Perkins very well, but Miss Ainslee 
is such an improvement on him. Is she to go 
out with us. Aunt Ada ? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ Then that is what Uncle Dick meant when 
he said it concerned him. He was thinking how 
nice it would be to travel all that way with 
her.” 

“He’s looking further than that,” remarked 
Miss Ada with a smile. “ If things keep on this 
way I don’t believe she will ever come east again 
to live, Polly.” 

“ She won’t if I can help it,” said Uncle Dick 
from the doorway. “ "What do you think of our 
scheme, Polly wog ?” he asked as he caught Polly 
and tousled her. 

“I think it is grandiferous,” replied Polly, 


East and West 


215 


squirming out of his grasp. “ But you’d better 
behave yourself, Mr. Dicky-Pig, or I’ll tell on 
you.” 

“ Just see how she gets me in her power,” said 
Uncle Dick to his sister. “ I’ll not be safe a mo- 
ment from that wicked child’s malicious tales.” 

Don’t you call me a wicked child,” said Polly 
darting at him. ‘‘ Now for your nose.’^ 

“ Spare me ! Spare me ! ” cried her uncle, 
putting up both hands. ‘‘ I’ll be good, Polly ; I 
will indeed, but if you spoil my features, how 
can you expect Miss Ainslee ever to like me? If 
you’ll promise to be good and say nice things 
about your dear uncle, I’ll let you be brides- 
maid.” 

‘‘Oh, Dick, you silly boy!” expostulated his 
sister. “Don’t fill the child’s head with such 
notions. He hardly knows Miss Ainslee, Polly, 
and it will make her so uncomfortable that she 
will leave, in a month, if your Uncle Dick keeps 
up this sort of nonsense.” 

This hushed up Master Dick and he began to 
ask Polly such silly questions as : “ What is the 
result of half a dozen ears of corn and a pint of 
Lima beans ? ” 


2i6 


Three Little Cousins 


“ You can’t add ears and pints,” protested 
Polly stoutly. 

“ Oh, yes, you can,” returned her uncle 
jauntily. “Luella does it often and the result 
is succotash.” 

Polly made a contemptuous mouth at him. 

He laughed and went on. “Here’s another. 
“ When apples are ten cents a quart how much 
are blueberries ? ” 

“Why, why — they’re just the same. Aren’t 
they ? ” Polly appealed to her Aunt Ada. 

“The blueberries are less; they’re always 
less; they’re smaller, you see,” her uncle an- 
swered. 

“ That’s no answer at all,” said Polly in a dis- 
gusted tone. “I won’t play,” and she stalked 
off to join her cousins. 

Yet, as the poet Burns says : “ The best laid 
plans of mice and men gang aft agley,” and, 
after all, things did not turn out exactly as was 
at first expected, for when the children had made 
their rounds to say good-bye to Ellis and Myrtle, 
Leona, Ora and the rest, and when they were 
actually on the boat with Cooney safe in a big 
basket. Uncle Dick pulled some letters out of his 


East and West 


217 


pocket and began to look them over. “ I found 
these in our box this morning when I went into 
the post-office,’’ he said. ‘‘There’s one for you, 
Ada, and here’s one for me from Arthur.” He 
glanced down the page. “Well, well, well,” he 
exclaimed, “ this settles your hash. Miss Molly.” 

“ What do you mean ? ” asked Molly, leaving 
her seat and coming over to him. 

“ Why, listen. This is from Mary’s father. 
‘ A turn in the business which brought me over, 
compels me to remain at least three months 
longer, so I am accepting John Perrine’s kind 
offer to keep my little girl till I am ready to 
go back home. I am sure the dry climate of 
Colorado will complete the good work of the 
summer and that I shall be able to take Mary 
home with her health entirely established.’ ” 

Polly rushed tumultuously at Mary and gave 
her a hearty squeeze. “ Pm going to have you ! 
I’m going to have you!” she cried. “Won’t 
we have good times ? ” 

Molly sat with a very grave face looking on. 
Her uncle smiled down at her. “Looks as if 
you were out of it, doesn’t it, Mollykins ? ” he 
said. 


2i8 


Three Little Cousins 


Molly turned a mournful countenance upon 
him and gave a long sigh. “I s’pose mother 
and I will not be going to England at all,” she 
said. 

“ I ‘ s’pose ’ not,” said her aunt. “ In fact I am 
quite sure of it. She put down the letter which 
she was reading. “There is a change of plans 
all around, Molly dear, and you’re not left out, 
as you will see. You know, my dearie, that your 
mother was taking the opportunity of visiting 
England because your father expected to make a 
business trip which would keep him away from 
home all winter, and your parents had concluded 
to rent their house to some friends. Now that 
the house is actually rented and you are not go- 
ing to England your mother will go with your 
father, and you, Molly, my kitten, will go to 
Colorado that you may still have your lessons^ 
and be in good hands. Your father and mother 
will stop for you on their way home. As for 
me ” 

Molly did not wait for the last words, but 
rushed over to where Mary and Polly with heads 
together were excitedly talking over the plans 
for the coming winter. Molly precipitated her- 


East and West 219 

self upon them in a tumult of excitement. “ I’m 
going, too ! I’m going, too ! ” she cried. 

“ Where ? Where ? ” exclaimed Polly. 

To Colorado ! to Colorado, with you and 
Mary ! ” chanted Molly. 

A squeal of delight from Polly was followed 
by one scarcely less joyful from Mary, and then 
the three took hold of hands and danced around 
the steamboat cabin till they dropped in a heap 
at the feet of their aunt and uncle. 

“Just think,” said Molly when she had re- 
covered her breath. “ We’ll all be together just 
as we were this summer, you, Polly, and Mary 
and Uncle Dick and Aunt Ada.” 

“You. must count me out, Molly,” said her 
Aunt Ada. “ I shall do no more than see you 
all safely at the ranche, and then I am going to 
spend the winter further south with my dear 
friend Janey Moffatt who has been married a 
whole year and whom I have never yet visited. 
I have just had this letter setting the time for 
me to come. I think Miss Ainslee and your 
Aunt Jennie can keep you three in order.” 

“ If not, there am I,” put in Uncle Dick scowl- 
ing savagely. 


220 


Three Little Cousins 


“ As if you ” began Polly. But he made 

a dive at her and she disappeared behind a pillar 
of the cabin. 

“ Now,” said Miss Ada, “ it is just as I said : 
there will be no difficulty in deciding where 
Cooney is to go, and to tell you the truth, my 
dears, I think he will thrive better in a cool 
climate than anywhere else, for with their fluffy 
coats, these little coon cats are liable to fall ill 
and die where it is too warm for them. The 
ranche will be just the place for him.” So 
Cooney’s future was assured and in time he 
reached his new home safely, none the worse for 
the long journey, during which he was tenderly 
cared for. Luella had gladly taken charge of 
Cosey, promising to return to Miss Ada the next 
summer and to bring the little cat with her. 

“ Even if I’m married,” she said, “ Granville 
says I may live with you summers. Miss Ada, 
whilst he’s off fishing.” 

When Molly had spent two weeks with her 
parents and Mary had seen her father, the three 
little girls were ready to set out upon their 
longer journey, though it must be confessed that 
at the last Molly found it hard to say good-bye. 


East and West 


221 


and Mary looked rather grave. Polly, however, 
reminded Mary that there would be no Miss 
Sharp at the ranche, and Uncle Dick whispered 
to Molly that he didn’t see how any one could 
be other than happy at the prospect of spending 
part of each day in Miss Ainslee’s company, and 
from that began to make such delightful plans 
that in a short time they were happy in thinking 
of the good times ahead of them. Uncle Dick 
promised to provide each with a safe little 
broncho to ride. Aunt Ada told them that their 
Aunt Jennie had put three small beds in her 
biggest room, so that the little girls could room 
together. Miss Ainslee told Molly confidentially 
that it made all the difference in the world to 
her that she was to have one of her own little 
pupils with her, and Polly, who really loved 
Cooney more than either of the others, was so 
delighted at not having to give him up that she 
was ready to share him generously with her 
cousins, and always lifted him over into Mary’s 
or Molly’s lap whenever one of them said : 
“ Now, Polly, you have had him long enough.” 

Altogether the long journey was not unpleas- 
ant, and when the travelers at last arrived. 


222 


Three Little Cousins 


though they were weary, they were very happy, 
and that night cuddled down in their little white 
beds while around their dwelling place towered 
up the great mountains, steadfast as the friend- 
ship which was born that summer in the hearts 
of the three little cousins and which lasted their 
lifetime. 




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